Making Sense with Sam Harris - #235 — A Call from Ricky Gervais

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Ricky Gervais calls Sam to ask why we dream? They discuss why puns are terrible and breakdown some of the mechanics of comedy. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

hello ricky how's it going hey uh good how's it going yeah good so question yes i'm ready oh go on i'm ready i'm ready wait wait let me make sure both feet are on the floor i'm ready. I'm ready. Wait, wait, let me make sure both feet are on the floor. I'm ready. What are dreams for? And I mean, do they provide a sort of medical or evolutionary advantage, or are they just a byproduct of a living brain, which would be boring? So what are they for? Are they for anything? I don't even use the, I can't think of the correct terminology to ask you. That probably sounds like a dumb thing, but do you know what I mean? Okay, I know what fingers are for. I know what eyes are for.

What are dreams for? Dreams are for the same thing as fingers. You're just using them wrong. You hit it perfectly, the question, what are they for or are they just a byproduct? Yeah. You know, the technical word people use in philosophy there is an epiphenomenon. Yeah. They're not doing anything.

They're just associated with something that's doing something. Right. I don't think we know, really. I mean, we know that certain good and necessary things happen during REM sleep, which is generally associated with dreaming. That's not the only stage of sleep where we have dreams, but there seems to be several things going on. At least there's a process of memory consolidation that happens during REM. So if REM sleep is disrupted a lot, your memory certainly suffers,

but that's not. So is it, is it there? So could you say that it's your brain getting work done that it can't do when you're conscious? Cause it's, you're using it for other things and it goes, right.

He's asleep. Let's do this stuff. Let's stock take. Let's put, let's, let's, is it like putting a kid's toys away when he's asleep?

Is it, I can't grasp what you mean by how do they consolidate memories? Where do memories go? Is it like putting it away in a drawer? I, you're going to have to use a lot of metaphor for me. I want to go back to the distinction you made quite naturally at the beginning,

whether the dream experience itself is doing something or whether it's just a byproduct of the thing that's doing something. And that I don't think we know. There's a remaining question, why should there be any experiential component to this memory consolidation? It seems like the brain should be able to consolidate memories in the dark without there being any experience of it. It does most of what it does in the dark, or certainly seems to, which is to say that you're not conscious at any point of the maintenance it's doing or any of the other things it's doing.

So why we should have these bizarre experiences every night and whether whether that is necessary you know for memory consolidation or anything else that's i totally accept that i totally if if if someone said listen this is this is synapse jumping and and pinging off and and they're hallucinations that don't mean anything because, you know, you're not engaging sort of critical thinking because you're asleep. I could totally accept that. But I wonder why after, you know, millions of years of evolution that they seem to be so important. No one doesn't. There's no one that doesn't dream.

We do it every night. so important no one doesn't there's no one that doesn't dream we do it every night and also isn't there isn't there a certain degree of why is why have okay right this is why i think it might be pseudoscience and nonsense and and um anecdotal evidence that has made me think there's a reason to them because i remember when i was um i was doing chemistry and we were told that Kekulé when he was trying to work out the structure of benzene had a dream of a snake biting its own tail and he woke up and said it's a ring right now I can I can both accept that it might be giving you cryptic clues because you know a lot of things happen in your brain that are subconscious. I could also accept that that's nonsense. He made it up.

It's a coincidence. He knew the answer. He went to sleep with the answer. And then I almost want to know the magic and the science. And I want them to be the same thing. Do you know what I mean? Well, most dreams are like a bad television show that just got greenlit 250,000 years ago, and no one has figured out how to get it off the air. I mean, they're not producing insights into science, right?

It's just noise. But I think one thing that dreams reveal about our minds is that it's possible for us to be pushed into new circumstances. You know, suddenly, I mean, you go to bed having every right to expect to stay in your bed, and the next thing you experience is something quite different, and you're not even remotely surprised by the transition. I mean, Your conscious mind is suddenly put in relationship to people who aren't actually there. Some people might be dead. Some people might be famous people you don't know. So I could have had a dream. I was talking to Ricky Gervais before I met Ricky Gervais, and I wouldn't be surprised at all, right? Unless it's a lucid dream,

which is its own thing well we're getting cartesian now because this obviously could be a dream this this this it could it could be you know i've i've had i've had this dream i've had a dream where i'm where i'm unaware that it's a dream and i'm talking to dream characters and i'm i'm lecturing them on this very point you realize this could be a dream right now yeah and they're they're all looking at me like i'm an idiot self-awareness yeah i i often have self-awareness in dreams in fact uh so if i have nightmares i now i've got to the point where in my dream i can say jane jane wake me up wake me up and. And sometimes I think she said, I have said her name. And obviously in the dream now, I'm in the nightmare,

but I'm in bed and I know Jane is trying to wake me up. And it takes, I don't know how long it takes in reality. It probably seems to me like half the night and to her like three seconds. Well, that's a lucid dream that's the opposite of what I was just confessing I've had a dream where I had no idea I was dreaming

and I'm lecturing dream characters that this could be a dream I'm having a conversation of the sort that we're having right now and they're looking at me like I'm a total moron and then I wake up but this this is one thing that reveals actually an example probably closer to your heart is have you ever had someone tell you a joke in a dream

yeah and the punchline actually works right like so I think I think so I think I've had dreams where I've invented jokes and I've woken up excited and I've remembered it and it's absolute bollocks it doesn't make it's not as funny it's not it doesn't make any sense and then but what what I have had that's worked I've dreamt tunes and I've gone down and I've worked them out and they're pretty good right and So that's the, so that's because I, I think the reason is that a tune is one thing, but a joke is a misdirection. It's a magic act in it.

And it plays with, it plays with expectation and logic and surprise. And, and I think that dreams, if I've got this right, you, they sort of, they sort of take critical thinking out of it. They take out logic.

So it's purely your emotions firing and practicing and just being spilt. So that would make sense that you'd wake up laughing that you've just invented the funniest dream in the world, but the logic and the critical thinking part of it says, well, it was actually bollocks. You just felt the fun. So I get that. Yeah. I have an embarrassing example of that, but I was going for the opposite of that. But my example of that, just to show you how insane one can be in the mere feeling without any anchor to logic or kind of reality testing. I once woke up beside my wife laughing my head off from a joke told in a dream. And I turned to her and I said, I just dreamt the funniest joke. And she, being

wiser in the ways of science, said, it's not going to be funny. I said, no, no. And she said, it's not going to be funny. And I said, here's the joke. What sound does a monster make? And she said, she says, I don't know. What sound does a monster make? And then I drum on the end table, the sound, in the dream, it was something like this. And then I actually go one further round. I say, no, no, that's not it. It's. And then my psychosis lifted, right? I actually go one further round. I say, no, no, that's not it. It's and then my psychosis lifted. Right. I actually thought I thought I could deliver the punch line a second time and it would land and it was just drumming on the intake.

You were still close to your subconscious dream state where you were convinced that this was so your so your emotional side outweighed your logic. Your logic had to get back. Your logic had to get up and rub its eyes and put its clothes on and go, Sam, that doesn't work. And you go, oh, no, it doesn't work. But I quite like that because that's like a child's dream. Yeah.

That's sort of like a child's dream because they've nearly got it right. It nearly works. It's got the rhythm of the joke but it doesn't quite work on a comedic level and that is the same as that they want they yeah that's interesting but i'm wondering if you ever had the opposite experience where something actually quite rational and and logical and fit for export into waking life has been communicated to you in a dream like the punchline actually works i can't remember i can't remember and i know i i uh i can't remember which is disappointing isn't it i could imagine that dreams could almost be like a simulator where

there were no distractions you you you're you were, you were close to you. Obviously you're, you're unconscious, your brain's doing its thing and it's taking you through scenarios almost that you could do when you're daydreaming and using logic. But obviously it's only on an emotional level, which is still good. If you know that there could be an argument or there might be research done that the reason why logic's kept out of it is because it can be stifling in art that, you know, your imagination is bigger than your your your critical thinking. So, you know, that it's it's it's sort of like it's an infinite world emotion isn't it it can take you anywhere

it can take you anywhere you can fly you can you can shoot people you can you can do anything that you know you you can't practice in real life so maybe it's maybe it's only preparing you it could be that it's only a strengthen you up emotionally like does a kid dreams of their grandfather dying and then it's not quite as bad when it happens could that could that could that have any sort of value there that it strengthens you emotionally in the sense that it takes it takes your mind where your body hasn't been yet. You know, I don't know, because it is so discontinuous with what tends to happen in the waking state. I mean, that is if you're sane, right?

I mean, because insofar as the waking state begins to resemble what you experience in dreams, it becomes pretty dysfunctional. Like, you know, thinking that this is the funniest joke you've ever heard and it actually makes no sense. I mean, that is madness what's very interesting about that is is that it shows that the comedy is an intellectual pursuit as opposed to an emotional one and i've always thought that as soon as you start putting emotion into comedy it fails on a certain level even down to the point that if you're saying thing that that's the audience don't agree with or don't like or it's a contentious thing or it's

a dark subject they they won't allow themselves to like the joke as much as if it's just syntax or you know a pun or something you know that works for everyone if they understand the language whereas not puns not puns spare me that well puns aren't no i don't think puns are funny but what i mean is it it shows that you understand if you understand you have to understand that language and therefore you have to get the joke so it's quite a good a pun is quite a good vehicle to to so that you've understood language and also it shows the misdirection very clearly, a pun. Again, not funny. So let's linger there for a second.

Some people obviously think puns are funny. Why are some people allergic to puns? I mean, that difference of opinion comedically, do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, because I think that once you've done one, you know, you've seen them all all really. They're the same thing. It's almost like a nod of the head. I understand those two words have different meanings. I saw the misdirection. It was a surprise. It's a release. There's no way that you could be crying with laughter on the floor at a pun. that you could be crying with laughter on the floor at a pun. Like you could with something that, you know.

That's fascinating, though. Is it too brief or it's just too, it's object being a language? It's too superficial or what? No, I think on a couple of levels. I think really one thing is that it's only discovered. It was always there. A pun was always there because the dictionary was always there so with a pun it takes someone to suddenly stumble across those two words and put them into a sentence and you know it's almost like you couldn't claim if one comedian

did a pun and another comedian who was a punster did a pun he couldn't claim you couldn't say oh no you heard me say that you'd go well no it was in the dictionary it was there itster did a pun he couldn't claim you couldn't say oh no you heard me say that you'd go well no it was in the dictionary it was there it's it's almost like it's it's not so creative it's more like a found object a pun and you can be clever with it and you know what there are some amazing punsters but i still think it's it's not like it's not as funny as someone falling over because it's not visceral. Anthropologists say that the first bit of comedy was one caveman laughing and another caveman hit his head. Why? Empathy.

That caveman knew that that hurt because he's done it, and he knew that that other caveman didn't want to do it, and that's funny. That's actually funny because we feel it as well i've almost contradicted myself saying that it's an intellectual pursuit as opposed to an emotional one that's interesting well yeah that would be obviously that's there's other types of humor i'm gonna stick to my initial premise that comedy is an intellectual pursuit because I think my examples that are emotional aren't comedy. They're hardwired, visceral.

They're funny, but they couldn't be called comedy because I think comedy is some sort of created framework to tickle your funny bone. Whereas having a sense of humor, you can look at the sky and smile. You wouldn't call it comedy. But we have this phrase, physical comedy. You've got Charlie Chaplin and everyone on up from there making us laugh or often making us laugh by falling in the right places. Yeah, but there are physical jokes. I think the difference, if you're walking along the street and someone slips and it's their head and says, fucking out. That's funny.

Right. That's funny for the caveman reason. Right. That's funny. We empathize. It's not us. Right. They didn't want to do it.

I think with something like Keaton and Chaplin, there are built in jokes. There are actual built in jokes like someone bending down, missing the plank, getting up, tipping a hat, seeing a lady getting hit in the plank. That's a constructed physical. They're using physicality there like we'd use words and sentences and surprises and a joke. I still think that's different to just seeing someone falling over. You couldn't call comedy. But it can be the funniest thing you know well it's the mismatch between

you know having a you know a sick old person fall over that's not funny unless you're in a sociopathic frame of mind but having a person who's full of pretension about their own station in life fall over it gets to the funny and And that's when you create comedy and narrative, you do allow that because you're almost pandering to the audience that in fiction, we create our own heroes and villains as role play for the soul. So villains get their comeuppance,

heroes are rewarded and you make the world perfect. And you're right, pretension is, you know, is the opposite of heroic. So when someone's smug and hits their head, that's funnier than the hero hitting his head. is that drama doesn't show people's flaws or rather their inadequacies. Whereas comedy, we embrace them. Comedy at its best says we're all idiots, so it's fine. It's almost a celebration of being a loser, comedy. And as soon as you lose that, you start getting into drama. As soon as the lead people are perfect or heroic or don't do anything wrong that's not funny same as stand-up if someone comes out and tells you how they outwitted the world how brilliant they are how you know what a great day they've had and you know they're infeasibly

handsome and you go this isn't funny just like like someone showing you holiday snaps of the perfect holiday. You want someone to come out, slip, bang his head, tell you what a terrible day he's had. And with his blessing, you're laughing more because you want to hear, you don't want to hear. Perfection isn't funny. It's just not funny. Flaws are funny. Mistakes are funny.

There's this comedian. You might know him if you're a bit of an anglophile called um les dawson he was uh around in like the 50s 60s 70s 80s right and uh it was a great northern comedian he loved language he'd uh he was almost alan bennett like and his um you know he'd tell these these these funny stories. But he used to do this thing where he'd play the piano and he'd hit the wrong notes. But he was very arrogant about it. And he'd smile and he'd wink like he was Liberace. And it was hilarious.

And I've thought of that for years. And I almost use that as a metaphor for sort of dark humor. We're laughing, right right because we're laughing at the blind spot that he thinks he's brilliant and we know he's not right but we can only laugh if we know that tune if we don't know that tune we don't know the mistakes so i think people laugh at the wrong thing because they know what the right thing is. And I've tried to apply that to, you know, everything in comedy, politics, whatever. And I think that's a good feeling. Just like people, when they laugh because they get the pun, it's almost a celebration of understanding and surprise.

And I think that's interesting. Laughing at the wrong thing because you know what the right thing is that those notes are the bits we laugh at when he hits the wrong note we laugh at that wrong note yeah because it sounds bad because we know what the right thing is so and that might be also because there might be an interpersonal understanding of what's right in music because i'm sure there are some avant-garde pieces of music that sound worse where where they've explored hitting seconds, and it sounds to the average person a monstrosity, but to the people who understand it would appreciate it more. I make it a point to laugh at those people.

Well, of course. I'll tell you an anecdote here. I was at college with a guy and he was studying languages and he went to see this foreign film. And it was subtitled, the audience, all students watching this. And there was one bit where a Russian guy was talking to another Russian guy and it wasn't subtitled. And so he told a joke in

Russian and one guy who was studying Russian at the back went just to let everyone know and I think right that joke can't be that funny you're just letting everyone know you understood a joke in Russian right so there's that celebration as well. And that you're right about the retention of, um, but maybe not, maybe, you know,

because I can't get into jazz. I've tried, but then there's gateway things. Oh, that's good. I get it. And slowly, you know,

and I think all the things I love now were an acquired taste. They were challenging. You know, I did. I didn't like radiohead at first now they're my favorite band you know you're now drinking scotch for breakfast wow that's that's another thing you can't just yeah pure pure probably not good for you yeah but um so i i get it i i i understand it but uh i think you sometimes have to work at stuff to appreciate

them more um yeah and you know i i i suppose i i've been worried about pretension but now if i believe someone if someone if someone i'll give you another example okay so when i was um uh on the doll do you say what do you say that you're on welfare i left college and i didn't have a job and i had no money yeah welfare right so yeah um yeah no money but so what i used to do all day is just run i used to run around london right i thought i'd keep fit and and i couldn't afford you know to use the subway or but you know so and i saved all my money for you know a pint of beer so and i used to go to art galleries because they were free and i remember i went in a one art gallery and there was a a dali exhibition on and i saw for the first time lobster telephone so it's basically a telephone with a lobster on as the receiver and i saw it and i looked down and it just said

lobster telephone and i laughed because i just thought that's so funny and so primitive to do a you know he didn't give a a highfalutin title he called he called it lobster telephone and i laughed and a couple of people who were looking at it gave me a dirty look as if to go, what are you doing here? You, you scruffy, you sweaty bastard. Yeah. You don't know anything. And it really annoyed me. And it's that thing in that Woody Allen film. I wanted to get Dolly out and go, were you joking? And he'd go, yes, of course I was joking. I go, see, fuck off. So, I'm very aware of, of pretension, but. Do you know but do you know Dolly they're selling out and they're selling out at the end of his life he would just sign blank canvases really they'd pay

him I forget what it was but something like you know twenty thousand dollars to just sign away and he would just sign endless numbers of blank canvases for that people could do whatever they wanted with that's amazing i uh i heard an anecdote about picasso which is one of my favorite things ever about getting good at something i guess towards the end he used to do the same for for charity and people would queue up and he'd uh he'd do a little squiggle a little percastle squiggle for 500 or something and one woman queued up and he squiggled a thing and you know she went you're gonna charge me 500 that took you a few seconds and he said no madam it took me all my life yeah and i think that's so good people are people are great at something it doesn't look like they're trying hard it doesn't

look like they're you know um so i i i i do like that and i do appreciate you know that that 10,000 hours to be genius and but i i am in awe of things that i can't do like getting back to music i mean i it's like it's like downloading emotions. I don't understand. Why does some pieces of music, with no association, right? It's not, you know, my gran didn't used to play it. A chord can make me feel sick.

Like I want to cry and laugh at the same time because it's so beautiful. Now that must be, that must be some sort of hard wiring, mustn't it? But why? There weren't orchestras when we were Australopithecus. Why does that? Yeah. Wow. of a super stimulus no someone who was who was interacting with a a species of um seagull it was raising these seagull chicks and the mother seagull has you know has a kind of a red dot on her beak to which the chicks orient and bond yeah and so they created a fake mother with a specially large red dot. Yes, yeah.

And it was even more effective than the natural version. So there's something about... I think there are things in... I actually think television and film is a kind of super stimulus for us. And it's one of the reasons why we find it so captivating. i can't remember if we spoke about this and when we did a podcast if it just makes i just think it makes you're there you can see things you couldn't possibly see it's not like a you know you can't you in a documentary about vikings you don't see marauding Vikings with personality. Whereas when you watch a great production, it's like you're seeing real life. Even though it's fiction, you're seeing things

you shouldn't really have seen. I think the crucial thing is, yeah, you're seeing things you shouldn't or couldn't have seen in a condition where you're invisible. Like, I mean, this is what's amazing. Like, I can look at your face, you know, when you're on screen, and I'm unimplicated. There's nothing you're going to do with your eyes that's going to expose me to your glance. And so it's this experience of just transcendent voyeurism. Yeah. But I also think it's less to be good,

because there are things you can, you know, otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing as a great film and a terrible film, you know, and I know that's subjective, but that's true of everyone's, you know, you turn things off. This isn't,

this isn't doing it for me. Why am I watching this? You know? So yeah, it is that, it is that experience. And there's another one run that right in the third is when people saw a film, they were blown away but when

we watch it now we go oh it's black and white it's a bit flickery there's no special effects worse than that my daughter i've got a i've got a 12 year old daughter who's not impressed by films i know blew me away when i was 15 or 18 like Like she looks at Star Wars. I mean, she notices how bad the acting is in Star Wars. Well, I think you've hit on something with the participation because that's why video games are bigger than movies because you are participating. I think that people want to be part of every cause of web they can they want to cause they want to cause the commotion they want to have an effect on the world so i think the next level is a film that's as good as the godfather where you're in it yeah i think that's the next

that's the next level you know you you do and say things and those characters react or we can all become as stupid as we are in dreams and just find everything just amazing. Oh, yeah. Well, that got back to the... Yeah. So basically, you don't know the answer. All right. Thanks.

Bye.