Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How Saying Less Gets You More & Why Objective Reality is Not Your Reality

Starting point is 00:00:00 Chiara. It means smart in Italian. Too bad your barista can't spell it right. So you just give a fake name. Your cafe name. Julia. But the more you use it, the more it feels like you're in witness protection. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order?

Starting point is 00:00:19 But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this. Because you could have just made your espresso at home. Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. Today on Something You Should Know, do you let your dog sleep in bed with you? If so, I've got some good news. Then, the secret to getting people to understand your story and buy into your idea. Every idea can be simplified to the point

Starting point is 00:00:46 where you can give it to people in a format that they'll understand it. And one of the hardest things to learn how to do is to separate everything you want to say from only what needs to be said. Also, even if you're a good person, you're probably a better person in the morning. And one scientist makes the case that the reality you see in front of you right now isn't really what's there at all. I'm saying that there is an objective reality, but the nature of that objective reality is utterly unlike anything in our perceptions. That the very language of space and time and objects

Starting point is 00:01:23 is simply the wrong language to describe it. All this today on Something You Should Know. Chiara. It means smart in Italian. Too bad your barista can't spell it right. So you just give a fake name. Your cafe name. Julia. But the more you use it, the more it feels like you're in witness protection. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order?

Starting point is 00:01:50 But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this because you could have just made your espresso at home. Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers hello welcome to something you should know i don't mention this very often but you know the

Starting point is 00:02:21 engine that keeps this podcast going is advertising. And consequently, we love our advertisers. And when people ask me how can I show my support for your podcast, I tell them, and I'll tell you, if you hear an advertisement on this podcast that interests you, I hope you'll check it out. And if what they're selling fits your needs, I hope you'll buy it. Often we have special promo codes or special URL websites, and it really helps if you use those because, well, A, you'll usually save money using a promo code, and it also lets the advertisers know that their advertising is working,

Starting point is 00:03:00 that you, our listeners, are coming and shopping on their website. First up today, dog people. And there really are two kinds of dog people. Dog people who let the dog sleep in the bed and dog people who don't. I've never minded having the dog in the bed, but my dog now, Taffy, she doesn't actually like sleeping in the bed. She'll stay on the bed for a little bit and then she jumps off and sleeps in her own bed. But you've probably heard, if you're a dog person, that there have been several reports that say that letting your dog sleep in bed with you is actually a bad idea for health reasons.

Starting point is 00:03:38 But there's one thing you have to know about dog people, and that is that they're unlikely to change the way they treat their dog. So if your dog sleeps in your bed, it's unlikely I'm going to change your mind and convince you to stop doing that. So here instead are some reasons that should make you feel better about letting your dog sleep in the bed. First of all, it can calm you down. It's known that dogs help fight anxiety and depression. Just look at service dogs and pet therapy. Allowing a dog in your bed is a soothing presence that can help you de-stress after a hectic day. It can make you feel safer.

Starting point is 00:04:18 There's a reason people have been sleeping around dogs since ancient times. Just the physical presence of a dog around you may help you feel more secure because if something were to come and sneak up on you, your dog would probably alert you. And it could help you sleep better. Some people swear, and studies have shown, that the rhythmic breathing, heartbeat,

Starting point is 00:04:40 and soothing presence of a dog is the best sleep aid around. And that is something you should know. So here's the problem. You have something to say. You have a message to deliver, or a pitch to make, or you're applying for a job. Whatever it is, and the people or the person you're trying to talk to, to hear your message or

Starting point is 00:05:05 pitch or appeal, well, those people are being bombarded by messages from a million other people. So how do you get heard? How do you get your message to rise above the noise? The simple answer may be not to talk more or to talk louder, but to talk less. Be brief. That's the message from Brant Pinvidic. And he would know. Brant is a producer and pitchmaster who has sold more than 300 TV shows and movies. He's run a TV network and ran one of the largest production companies in the world

Starting point is 00:05:40 with hit shows like The Biggest Loser and Bar Rescue. He's author of a book called The Three Minute Rule, and in his nearly 20 years of experience, he's developed a simple, straightforward system that will get you heard. And as he is about to tell you, it's not about saying more, it's about less. Hi, Brant. Hey, happy to be here. So describe the problem as you see it and as you have experienced it in your work. Well, I think the problem is that our attention spans have been shrinking astronomically. And I think what goes on is that it's harder to get people's attention. It's harder to get them to focus. It's harder to get them to engage. And so traditionally,

Starting point is 00:06:23 I think we've been trying to overshout and talk louder and say more. And I think what the three minute rule does is show people that there's another way to do it is to say less, get more, to not be the one shouting, to use simplicity as your sort of the power that you have to make people follow along, to see your information the same way you do. Isn't it interesting how just from the time in school when you were a kid, you figured that the more you say, the more information you throw at people, the better. When in fact, as you're about to point out, it's the opposite. Yeah, it's the total opposite. Now,

Starting point is 00:07:05 it's mostly because we used to do what was called the state-improve method, right? Which is like, we're going to tell you the big idea, and then I'm going to prove to you how it works. And yeah, 20, 30 years ago, that was working enough to make it happen. But now we've been bombarded with marketing and messaging and clickbaits and click funnels that we are completely distrustful. We're skeptical of everything. And we just, we have no time or energy for neuro-linguistic programming or, you know, clever ways of leading to your, to your information. We just want to know what it is. How does it work? Are you sure about that? Okay. How do I get it? Like, we just want the simple things as quickly as possible. And those who have figured out how to do that, amazingly, they're the ones that get heard the most.

Starting point is 00:07:48 Yeah, well, I can speak for myself, but I think I speak for a lot of people, especially today, who hear so much stuff coming at them that they would just prefer if you would get to the point, just say what you want to say. Tell me what this is, what you want, and let's move this along. It's a little bit of a confidence thing. And I always say, like, the more confident you are in the core of your information and the value you bring, the less words you need to explain it. And I make this joke all the time on stage where I say, like, if I was trying to get you to let me cater your wedding and I had Gordon Ramsay as a chef, like how many words would I need to convince you?

Starting point is 00:08:27 Four. I have Gordon Ramsay. Whereas if it was my brother-in-law who was an ex-convict who had never really cooked before but really needed a job, how many words would I need to try to sell you that? Right? I'd go into an entire thing. And so what I tell people is your information is somewhere between my convict ex-brother-in-law and Gordon Ramsay.

Starting point is 00:08:44 And the more words you use is that's how you show people where you fit on that scale. Like you're going to indicate it to them, how your level of confidence by the more words you use. And do you think you could get your ex-brother-in-law convict to cater a wedding? Could you, could you convince somebody? No. And that's, it's funny because a lot of people will use that like, oh yeah, you could sell ice to an Eskimo. And it's like, well, why would I do that? Like, no, I couldn't because even an Eskimo at this point is going to be like, listen, like you're not fooling me. You're not tricking me with any of your things. Like I don't

Starting point is 00:09:16 need ice. Right. And that's kind of the point where it's like, I can, I can't, I don't sell you anything. I can give you the information and the needs and the wants and the value of it. And if I give that to you, you'll make the decision. And if you see it the way I do, you'll probably make the right decision. The same one I did. That's why I'm sitting here trying to sell you is because I, I believe in what I say so much that I'm, I'm taking time out of my life to do this. If you understood my book the same way I understood it, you'd a hundred percent be buying it. And so that's the only goal, right? Is to try to make other people see things the way you see them. The world is filled with people. This audience is filled

Starting point is 00:09:55 with people who are saying to themselves, what this guy doesn't understand is my thing can't be explained in three minutes. my thing requires much more time it's much more nuanced it's much more sophisticated three minutes would never do it justice and that is i get that every single client says the same thing well what do we do is so complicated i can't do that eight minutes is about as much as i can get. And the truth is, is like your story from A to Z does not need every letter of the alphabet. And one of the hardest things to learn how to do is to separate everything you want to say from only what needs to be said. And that's a real skill and it's hard to do, but every business, every idea can be simplified to the

Starting point is 00:10:42 point where you can give it to people in a format that they'll understand it and they'll build their level of information. Then they can engage later. That's after the three minutes, of course, then they want to talk. You might have four other meetings and six other presentations to do. But at the core of it, until they understand what it is and how it works and some of the verification, they just can't get to that level of engagement. And so when you adopt the three minute rule, I mean, what's the thought process here? When I have something that I need to condense down to three minutes, and as you say, you don't need to use every letter in the alphabet, but you have to know which letters to leave out. So how do you approach this in some sort of, you know, deliberate fashion where it

Starting point is 00:11:27 works? And the formula really starts with the bullet points is what I call it. I basically get people to grab a post-it notes and a marker and start bullet pointing out the simplest two and three word explanation of what they do in the, in the simplest forms, just a couple of words, list them all out there. Now you can see it. There's nothing that takes the place of that tactile feel of moving post-its or index cards around, right? That's step one. And then I have what is called the WAC method, which is W-H-A-C. And I categorize your information based on that. W is what is it, which is literally what is it. Just explain what it is or what you're

Starting point is 00:12:05 doing in the simplest way. Then H is how does it work? Again, literally, how does it work? How do you operate? What do you do? What makes you unique? How does that function? The A is a question I always ask, are you sure? And this is where people, once they understand what it is and how it works, they want a sort of a validation. They want a verification. And this is where I have my clients use sort of their logic, their reason, their facts, their figures that sort of bolster the sort of elements that they were explaining. And then the can you do it is how does it actually get in my hands? When's it available? How do we work together? What does it cost? All of those things. And those are the four categories on how we make decisions as human beings. And when we rationalize something, we conceptualize it first so we understand what it is. Then we contextualize it as how does it relate to me? And then we actualize, meaning how do I make it real for myself? And that process is so simple. And when you start breaking everything down, you can see it right in front of your, right in front of your eyes. You can see it come to life. Sometimes I think though, people get too close to their own stuff. Like, like I interviewed lots of people and I could, I could

Starting point is 00:13:15 do that interview better than they did because they're so deep into the weeds here that they, they don't get what people really want to know yeah yeah no and that's i listen i'm it's taken me 20 years to learn to say things in three minutes so it's definitely not easy from that standpoint and the book's a good guide but i had trouble with it myself because when you live with the information and you know it so well you see all the intrinsic value of every nuance and it's like a movie that you love that you've watched 20 times when you watch it you see every detail every breath of the actor every every move the director made the way the music comes in that's because you've seen it 20 times and you love it and you

Starting point is 00:13:55 appreciate it but the person who sees it the first time doesn't see all that right and even myself when i wrote the book the intro was supposed to be the idea. And it is now the idea is that like, Hey, the average book reader decides to read a book in the first four pages, right? And that takes about three minutes to read coincidentally. But the average intro on a business book is like 14 pages long. So for me, I got three pages to make you want to read the rest of the book. And my first pass when I wrote that intro was 11 pages long. And it was like, it was because I'd just written the entire book and I was trying to go back and give an intro. And I got it to seven pages and I thought to myself for a moment, like, okay, well this intro is so good and the information

Starting point is 00:14:35 is so valuable and it's so important. And I put so much work into it. Maybe this intro can break my own rule. And I started rationalizing myself for a moment and then I was like, no, I guess I got to go back to the drawing board. And I literally put post-it notes on the wall and rebuilt my entire intro from scratch because even a guy who's an expert at it still has to take it back, take it back right to the very core and start and see it in its simplified methods. And I finally did get it to the four pages it is today. I'm speaking with Brant Pinvidic today, and we are talking about being more effective in your communication by keeping things short and getting to the point. He's author of the book, The Three Minute Rule. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

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Starting point is 00:15:56 more major appliances. Shop now in-store or online at bestbuy.ca. Exclusions apply. So, Brent, you work in television, and I work in the audio medium, and sometimes we have to create, whether it's commercials or programs or whatever it is, that have to fit in a certain amount of time. And, yeah, you could take hours to explain it, but you don't have hours. You have to get it in 60 seconds or you have to get it in a minute and a half. And, and somehow you can, when you have to. That is at its core is like anything can be simplified. And more importantly than it can be is it should be, it must be, it has to be because your audience demands that. I know with the attention spans, people think

Starting point is 00:16:42 that like we're mindless zombies, but it's not like, it's the opposite. We focus so much more intensely and so much more efficiently than ever before. If you don't give the audience that core information and hold their attention, they are gone onto something else. But so often when you're asked to deliver a speech or make a presentation, people expect more than three minutes. And I do talk about that a lot. Like, it's not like it's an elevator pitch. I don't teach an elevator pitch. Elevator pitches don't work anymore.

Starting point is 00:17:13 The idea that I'm going to tell you, I have this amazing new software that's going to save you 50% on all your accounting needs. And then you lean in in the elevator and go, ooh, tell me more. That doesn't work anymore. You know what I mean? It's the total opposite.

Starting point is 00:17:24 You don't lean in, you lean back and you basically say, please just stop talking. Right. And so this is about your three minutes. If you're lucky, if you can lead your audience and feed them your information in a core format that they start to understand, you might get three minutes of their attention. And if you do that, that's when they start that decision making process of whether they're going to engage further. So that's what I really work with clients like, yeah, you're going to have 15 meetings later, or you might have to do seven more presentations or whatever. The world was run by decision by committee now. But those first three minutes, that first impression, that first, here's what I do, here's how I do it, here's why you

Starting point is 00:18:03 should dig it, and here's how we work together that creates engagement and then you have an audience asking questions and being involved from an engaged perspective and like when I pitch a tv show I'm not trying to sell the tv show in the first three minutes I'm trying to get the buyers to ask the right questions to be interested to be engaged where they like okay I want to ask questions about how this show works on my network. And that's been the opening, and that's why I've had success. I've been able to put that together consistently. So how do you do that? Not necessarily just you pitching a TV show, but how do you, what is it you say that gets people to think, oh, I need to ask this question? Well, that really becomes what I call the hook of the story.

Starting point is 00:18:48 And a lot of Hollywood storytelling techniques are used because Hollywood's really good at that, right? Like James Cameron got you to watch a three-hour movie about a boat that you knew sinks, right? So the leading of that story is really effective. And so what I find is when you have a hook of a story, the thing that makes the best like bar rescue was John Taffer is the Gordon Ramsey for bars and restaurants. So my goal was to lead my audience to the point where they're like, oh, he could be the Gordon Ramsey of bars and restaurants, as opposed to starting my pitch with that. I don't start with the grand conclusion because then your audience is looking to disprove you the entire time. So really what you want to do is what is the most

Starting point is 00:19:30 valuable thing? What is that hook of your story? And what information would the audience have to have so that they will be thinking the hook when you go to say it? Like you almost don't need to say it, but it's right there. And after I pitched Bar Rescue and I showed them what John does and I explained the concept, the network president literally said, oh, he could be our Gordon Ramsay for bars and restaurants. And that's how leading your audience with a story really works well. And so what is it you said that got them to ask that question? So for me, it was building the structure of what the show was so i explained how the show works then i explained john's background and how he had the expertise and the history in bars and restaurants and then we showed him some some clips of how he worked so that they were feeling the in the impending build to that moment where they could see like okay i know how the show works i know

Starting point is 00:20:22 where he's going to be i know how he's going to use that personality. So now the next logical thing is he's the Gordon Ramsey of bars and restaurants because we were building to that moment the entire time. And you did all that in three minutes. Oh, we were, we were in that room by the time they were thinking that was less than three minutes for sure, because it, I just laid it out. And then we talked for another hour with John because he had all these great pieces and amazing stories. And we went in and we got excited and we sold the show in the room and everything went from there. But those first three minutes put those buyers in the right frame of mind to engage further. Now, we could have been

Starting point is 00:21:00 at other and I've been lots of time with great pitches where the network goes, yeah, this doesn't work for us. It's not the right fit for our network that happens all the time but at least they're making the decision based on on right information the information that i wanted them to have they saw the idea the same way i saw it does it help to have some disinterested third party to help you find that yeah it's it's almost impossible without that. And I play what I call the telephone test, where we'll be I've been in the conference room with a client, I was like, just call up random people that I know and be like, Hey, I'm going to have them explain this idea to you that I need you to call one of your friends and then have them call one of their

Starting point is 00:21:39 friends. And then here's the number for the conference room, call us back and tell us what it is. And I've done it where I've had to buy people like $25 Starbucks gift cards to get them to actually, you know, call us back kind of thing. But it's shocking what you think goes out the telephone as clear, pertinent information that should be obvious. And what comes back four degrees later is shocking. And when you get that right, you know it right away. And I've been in rooms where there's eight of us cheering like we won the Superbowl because some random person in Albuquerque calls up and says like, Oh, I got this number. I'm supposed to call you and tell you this idea. And they basically relay it back almost exactly right.

Starting point is 00:22:18 It's like this huge celebration. And so having a third party and getting it run out there and, and trying it out is really important. It hurts and it's unpleasant, but it's so valuable to do. So when you're putting those three minutes together, what's the lead? What's the best way? What's the thing to keep in mind that you're trying to do in the first? Because I imagine that even within the first three minutes, the first few seconds of the first three minutes are pretty critical. Yeah. Two things. One is don't open with your grand conclusion. Don't start with your hook.

Starting point is 00:22:55 Don't start with a big promise. Just don't. The actual way to open is it's called the reason for being. And I do this thing on stage where it's like, you know, if you think about the movie Bambi, like Bambi's mom didn't need to die in the very first moments of that movie. It actually had nothing to do with the story and really didn't, you know, you could have found that at any other time. It didn't have to have that happen at all. Bambi could have just got lost. But it's the reason for being. It's the reason why Disney's now going to tell you this story because Bambi's mom's just died. Bambi's all alone. And so the reason for being it's the reason why disney's now going to tell you this story because bambi's mom's just died bambi's all alone and so the reason for being in the opening is sort of like literally why am i sitting here why am i talking to you why am i involved why am i passionate about

Starting point is 00:23:35 this how did i come up with this where did this come from what brings me to this moment now so that you are it's persuasion it's called so you're basically letting the audience or the buyer or whoever it is understand how you want them to feel before the story begins and that's how why movies do it so brilliantly is they set up a stage in those first seconds to be like okay here's the tone here's the setup this is what i want you to understand now let me explain the story to you and in your first three minutes it's that's the sort of the opening piece of it is how do I get here today in a real presentation? And then it's sort of like here's what it is. Here's how it works.

Starting point is 00:24:13 Here's how I know it works. And here's how we can move forward. And literally that's really all you need to do. And I'm sure people are listening and be like, oh, my God. The world would be a better place if people just stuck to that. And yet there will always be those people that say, yeah, but my thing's different. I still get that to this day. You don't really understand. I've spent so much time doing it now. It's like, I actually hear, I think I hear differently. Not only do I communicate differently in this world,

Starting point is 00:24:38 but I think I hear differently. Like I've actually become better at listening to people's long-winded crap and siphoning through what they actually meant or what their real information is. And part of that's from all the consulting and doing a lot of these assessments. But even when I'm listening to my wife or my kids or my friends, I'm like, I can start to filter. Okay, here's what I think you're really meaning, or here's the, here's the value, here's what you're getting at. So it's, it's, it's interesting how our brains are starting to process this sort of everybody's in that same boat. Don't you get to the point in your own head where you just are saying to these people, get to the point, get to the point, get to the point.

Starting point is 00:25:12 No, never. I actually say just stop talking. On my keynotes, one of my first slides is just stop talking. It's the thing I might say the most when I sit with a company, tell me what you do. And it's like, okay, just stop talking. Whoa. Like you've said enough. That's it. What are we doing? And it's the same thing when I, when people ask me how to close, right? And it's like, they have this idea that the close of a pitch has to be some clever thing. And it's like, no, you just stop. You've basically said everything. There's nothing else to do. You don't

Starting point is 00:25:40 want to remind your audience that you've got some clever sort of pitch material that you've been working on for three weeks. Like, no, you just, once you get the information, that's enough. They've got it. You've won. Now let's hear what happens next. Now we engage. And I think it would be difficult for anyone to argue and disagree with what you're saying. I don't think most people would say that, no, I need more information. I need, you need to explain this much deeper. Most people like a short, sweet explanation when they're listening, but when they're delivering, it's so much harder to do. It's so hard to get it down into those, into those three minutes.

Starting point is 00:26:20 Well, and you can imagine how frustrating that is. Listen, you're one of the best in the business, obviously. But when you see that, like, I see the frustration on these, like, CEOs face big companies, like, you know, multi-billion dollar companies, and they just can't explain what they do to others. oil and gas research guys by their nature, they're not pitching and presenting people. That's not what they want to be doing. And the frustration of like having something you believe in so fundamentally and not being able to express it to others so that they understand it the way you do. Like I've seen that frustration across PTA presidents and fortune 100 CEOs. And it's like, I, I know how difficult it is. And that's why it's sort of like, it's kind of, I'm addicted to this process now because I can, I can really help people. You know, I imagine it's pretty exciting when, uh, for you personally gratifying when some, when you, when you see that light bulb go off. Well, it, it changed my life. You know, I was pretty deep into television and,

Starting point is 00:27:21 and I had my first, very first client i reluctantly spent time with because the you know i wanted me to redo his presentation and after he left me a voicemail and it was just like you've changed my life my wife's happier like i used to hate going on the road now i love it because i can explain this to people and i'll never be able to thank you enough and i was like oh my god no network president has ever said anything like that to me before like and as a you know a guy who's almost a caveman, it's like my ego starts talking. And the next thing you know, it's like, I could be really important to people. Like I could change people's lives. And like, that's addictive. It's hard to not want to do that for everybody that asks me. It's, it's, it's,

Starting point is 00:27:57 it's really addictive. Yeah. And, and this is one of those things that everybody knows what you're saying is true from our own experience. We've all been on the receiving end of someone telling us what they want to tell us. And we know that we like it when people are brief, they get to the point. And it's just good. It's good to get the confirmation that, yes, in fact, it really does work. Brant Pinvidic has been my guest. He is a producer who has sold more than 300 TV shows and movies.

Starting point is 00:28:26 And his book is called The Three Minute Rule. You'll find a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Brant. Oh, man, anytime. People who listen to something you should know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where

Starting point is 00:28:52 great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly

Starting point is 00:29:22 about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests,

Starting point is 00:29:56 but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker.

Starting point is 00:30:36 Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about what if what you see, what you perceive, your world, your universe, your reality, what if that isn't necessarily what's really there? What if there's a lot more to what's in front of you right now? It's just that you're limited by how you see it, how you hear it, and the limitations of your other senses.

Starting point is 00:31:12 As a simple example, what if there are more colors in the world than we can ever imagine? It's just that we're limited by the ability of our eyes to see those colors. It's kind of like a black and white movie. You only see black and white when you watch the movie because of the limitations of the film. But there were plenty of other colors when they filmed it. It's just you can't see them. Donald Hoffman is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences

Starting point is 00:31:41 at the University of California at Irvine, and he spent a long time exploring this idea and has written extensively about it. His latest book is called The Case Against Reality, Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. Hi, Professor. Welcome. Thank you, Mike. Great to be here. So explain your idea in more depth here that what we see and perceive is not necessarily what's there. Most of us believe that we see reality as it is.

Starting point is 00:32:13 I look up and I see the moon, you look up and you say you see the moon, and we both believe that we're seeing the same object and that the moon really exists even if we don't look. That's very, very natural. It seems very unnatural to even question that. But I looked at that question using one of our best theories, evolution by natural selection, and I asked a simple technical question. Does evolution by natural selection favor organisms that would see the truth, that would see reality as it is. And I found the answer was quite clear. The answer is no. That the very language of our perceptions, the language of space and time, of objects and colors and shapes and so forth, is simply the wrong language to

Starting point is 00:32:58 describe objective reality. So it's not simply that we might get the shape a little bit wrong or the position or the color a little bit off. It's rather that in that language, one could not frame a true description of reality. So when we look at the moon, when I look at the moon and you look at the moon and we both say there's the moon, you're saying that's not, what are you saying, that that's not real? Yes, I'm saying that there is an objective reality that would exist even if there were no creatures to perceive it. But the nature of that objective reality is utterly unlike anything in our perceptions, that the very language of space and time and objects is simply the wrong language to describe it. Rather, what evolution has given us is a user interface. Instead of showing us a window on reality, we have a desktop interface.

Starting point is 00:33:52 So if you're writing an email and the icon for your email is blue and rectangular and in the middle of your screen, does that mean that the email itself in your computer is blue, rectangular, and in the middle of your computer? Of course not. Anybody who thought that misunderstands the point of the interface is not there to show you the truth. In this metaphor, that would be the circuits and software and voltages. It's there, in fact, to hide that messy reality and to give you simple eye candy that lets you control the reality, even though you're utterly ignorant about the nature of that reality. And that's the point. Evolution has shaped us with a user interface specifically to hide the truth. We don't need the truth to survive. And we have just simple eye candy that lets us to control

Starting point is 00:34:43 reality as much as we need to survive and reproduce, even though we're utterly ignorant about the nature of that reality. And so the question I think many people would then ask after hearing that is, so what? If our reality is our reality, even if it isn't objective reality, even if what's really there we can't perceive, we perceive what we perceive. We're all pretty much in agreement on what we perceive. And so why is what you're talking about important? Well, this is important in certain practical and theoretical ways. In a practical way, understanding that our perceptions and our psychology is a user interface means that once we understand that user interface, we can play with it. So for people who are

Starting point is 00:35:32 involved in marketing and product design, this is critical to understand exactly how we've been shaped not to see the truth, but to see what we see is critical in understanding how to grab people's attention in marketing, how to affect their opinions. And also in product design, it's critical if we want to make people, for example, look attractive in clothing to understand how this interface works. So I've actually consulted with several companies doing just that. On a political level, understanding that we don't see the truth, that this is just a user interface has deep implications for in-group and out-group and the psychology of politics. And so understanding this is really critical for international relationships and politics. And then for the more geeky side of things, for those of us in the sciences who are just very interested in understanding objective reality for its own sake, to recognize that the

Starting point is 00:36:33 language of space and time is the wrong language is first a major blow, a major shock, but it's also the first step toward trying to come up with a better language for understanding objective reality. So this sort of dovetails with recent work in physics where physicists are realizing that they've assumed that space-time is fundamental reality for many centuries, at least since Newton. And now they're realizing in their own words that space-time is, quote, space-time is doomed. That's as they put it, space-time is doomed. It used to be what we thought was the foundation of objective reality. It's not. So physicists are now looking for something deeper, a deeper level of reality.

Starting point is 00:37:17 And of course, with each new advance in our understanding of reality, we get new and far more powerful technologies. So those are some of the payoffs. So are you saying that objective, when I look at the moon, I don't see objective reality, and you don't see objective reality, and is the point that I see a different reality than you do, or we're both just way off, or what? We probably agree quite a bit in what we perceive. Just like different users of, say, a Mac operating system agree about the kinds of icons that they see on their desktop. That kind of agreement doesn't mean that they're seeing the truth. They're not seeing the circuits and the software. They just have the same kind of user interface. And so you and I, when we both say, yeah, I see the moon, it's very much like that. We have the circuits and software inside there are four percent of humans who have what's

Starting point is 00:38:30 called synesthesia they have dramatically different perceptions than the rest of us one gentleman Michael Watson everything that he tasted with his tongue he could feel as a three-dimensional object with his hands in space. Like mint was a tall, cold, smooth column of glass. Angostura bitters felt like a basket of ivy. He could feel the leaves, the shapes, the textures, the temperature, and the weight. So evolution's not done with tinkering with our interface. And at least 4% of us have different kinds or at least variations on the human interface and so so it's it's it's a very simple idea in some sense we thought that we were seeing the truth what we're seeing is not the truth it's just a that is just a user interface

Starting point is 00:39:19 that lets us control reality even though we're ignorant of reality. If you had to toggle voltages to craft an email, your friends would never hear from you. Seeing the truth gets in the way of doing what you need to do to stay alive. So let's go back outside and look at the moon again, you and me. What is it you think I'm not seeing? Oh, so that's an interesting question. If reality is nothing in space and time and it has nothing to do with space and time, what is the objective reality? And of course, the right answer is I don't know. But I am playing with the idea that consciousness is an objective reality. And I'm trying to get a mathematical model of consciousness and think of objective reality as a vast social network of interacting consciousnesses. We'll see. I'm probably wrong, but that's the way you play

Starting point is 00:40:12 science, is you try to be precise with mathematical precision in your theories so you can find out precisely how and why you're wrong. When I look at anything and I'm not seeing objective reality, it seems to me I'm seeing my object. I've evolved, I'm part of this evolution that has evolved to see the reality I need to see to function in my life. What I don't see is kind of by definition irrelevant to me, so isn't this just an academic exercise? Well, that's a great point. So most of my colleagues would say that we see reality, but not all of reality. We only see those small aspects of reality that we need to survive.

Starting point is 00:40:58 And I'm saying something far more radical. I'm saying that nothing inside space and time could possibly be at all related to objective reality. It's the wrong place. It's like if we had a virtual reality headset on, everything that we see as we move around looking in our virtual reality headset is just a virtual reality, including the three-dimensional space that we perceive. The reality itself is far beyond. And the reason this is going to be important is if we've been this fundamentally mistaken about the nature of objective reality, once we get a better theory of objective reality, it's going to first tell us a little bit more about who we are and what we are and where we are, but also it will lead to new technologies.

Starting point is 00:41:42 Every time we understand better what reality is about, we get fabulous new technologies. And so what do you think reality is about that I don't think reality is about? Well, I'm playing with the idea that reality is about consciousness. And the reason I'm going there is, and this is one thing that motivated me

Starting point is 00:42:03 to start thinking about this problem in the first place. One of the biggest unsolved problems in science is the so-called hard problem of consciousness. The problem is this. We have hundreds of correlations between brain activity and conscious experiences. If I take a very, very powerful magnet and touch it to your skull on the right side, just above your ear, a place called area V4, and if I put that magnet in inhibit mode, you will lose all color experience in the left visual part of your world. When I turn the magnet off, all your color experience will come back on and we have hundreds of correlations like that where we we can manipulate brain activity and we find immediate changes to your conscious experiences and so there are all these correlations between brain activity and conscious experiences the hard problem of consciousness is this we have no idea how brain activity might cause conscious experiences. None. People have been trying,

Starting point is 00:43:06 brilliant scientists, Nobel Prize winners, have been trying to solve that problem for decades, even centuries. We've known this problem for centuries. Leibniz knew it in the early 1700s. And we've not been able to solve the problem. We have no ideas about how brain activity and conscious experiences are, you know, a theory about their relationship. All we know is that there are correlations. And so I'm proposing that the reason we've got this wrong is we've assumed that brains and neurons and space-time itself exist when they're not perceived and that they have causal powers. And I'm saying that's a mistake. We have a nice useful fiction of causality. If I take my icon for my email, my blue icon for email, and drag it to the trash can,

Starting point is 00:43:52 my file will be deleted. And I could intuitively say, well, it's the movement of the icon across the desktop that caused the file to be deleted. And if, you know, for a casual user of the interface, that's perfectly fine. It's literally false. The movement of the icon on the desktop has no feedback into the computer. It causes nothing. And so our idea that objects in space and time have causal powers, I hit the cue ball, it knocks the eight ball into the corner pocket. It's a useful fiction to say that the cue ball caused the eight ball to move. But strictly speaking, it's a fiction. We do not see real cause and effect in space and time.

Starting point is 00:44:35 We need a deeper scientific theory to get at that. And so that's what I'm after here, is a deeper understanding of the true cause and effect in reality that might allow us to then understand this hard problem of consciousness and solve it. Thinking about this hurts my head. Mine too. Yeah. It's been a very painful odyssey. It's not just been an intellectual geek exercise for me. It's been quite an emotional od emotional Odyssey because I've had to let go of some deeply held assumptions like like that this table in front of me will exist even if I don't perceive it I mean

Starting point is 00:45:15 that's something that Piaget a very famous child psychologist pointed out gets wired into us very early he called it object permanence that you know when we're first born, when something disappears, we effectively assume it doesn't exist. And at a certain age, he thought it was around 18 months. We've now discovered it's more like three or four months of age. We are wired up by evolution to just assume now that even if I don't see it, you know, you stick a, take that baby doll and put it behind the pillow, the baby will now look for the doll behind the pillow after about four months of age. We believe in object permanence. We believe that the moon exists even if we don't perceive it.

Starting point is 00:45:57 We believe that because we've been wired up before we had a chance to even argue about it. We were wired up to believe that. And so it, when we contradict that, when we say, no, this is just an interface, none of this stuff exists when we don't perceive it, that's really, really hard for us because we've believed that since before we were rational. And so that's why it's such an emotional one. But think about it this way. It's like having a virtual reality headset on. Suppose you're playing virtual tennis. an emotional one. But think about it this way. It's like having a virtual reality headset on.

Starting point is 00:46:31 Suppose you're playing virtual tennis. You can take the ball and hold it up in virtual reality. You see it. You know that if you turn your head, you will no longer see the tennis ball. But that doesn't mean that the tennis ball is still there, even though you're not looking. There is no tennis ball. Only when you look back, you will see a tennis ball, but that's because you're creating it on the fly when you look. And that's what I'm saying is true about everyday life. Just think about this. We've always had a headset on. It's a virtual reality headset that evolution gave us. It didn't give us a window on reality. It gave us a virtual reality headset that simplifies everything and gives us just what we need to act to stay alive. As you said in the beginning of this conversation, if what you're saying is true and there is an objective reality that we can't see, we evolved not to see it because by not seeing it and by seeing what we actually do see, that has helped keep us alive. So why bother with this? And in fact, could you be playing with fire here, that we don't need to see objective reality,

Starting point is 00:47:35 we do just fine without it? In fact, if we see it, that could cause a lot of problems, so maybe we shouldn't even see it. One obvious objection to this that people have that they think is an obvious dismissal is, look, they say, you know, Hoffman, if you think that that train coming down the tracks at 200 miles an hour is just, you know, an icon on your interface, why don't you step in front of it? And after you're dead and this silly theory with you, we'll know that that train is real and it really can kill. And I wouldn't step in front of the train for the same reason I wouldn't carelessly drag my blue rectangular icon to the trash can. Not because I take the icon literally. The file is not literally blue and rectangular. But I do take the icon seriously. If I drag that icon to the trash, I could lose all my work. And that's the point. Evolution has given us icons and an interface to keep us alive. We better take it seriously. Those who don't take it seriously, don't pass on their genes. We have to take it seriously, but that does not entitle us to take it literally. And that's the logical mistake that we make. We

Starting point is 00:48:50 assume that because we have to take what we perceive seriously, that therefore we're entitled or even required to take it literally. That's an elementary mistake. Well, it might be, but isn't it also possible that even though what you call objective reality isn't the reality we perceive, it doesn't mean it's inconsistent with the reality we perceive. And your train example is a good example. Maybe what we're perceiving is that train coming down the tracks isn't exactly right, but boy, if you don't step out of the way, it's still going to kill you. So the two realities may be different, but they may not be inconsistent. Donald Hoffman has been my guest. He is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences

Starting point is 00:49:35 at the University of California at Irvine. And his book is called The Case Against Reality, Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. You'll find a link to his book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Professor. Thank you, Mike. It was a pleasure. You're probably a very good person, but chances are you're a better person in the morning.

Starting point is 00:49:59 You see, you may wake up a good person, but after that, it's just downhill from there. It's known as morning morality in psychological circles. Studies have found that most of us experience our morality peak in the morning. That's the time of day we're least likely to cheat, lie, or cut corners. Then, as the day goes on, distractions tend to desensitize our moral fiber a bit. And when the sun goes down, we're naturally less inhibited, which could trigger immoral behavior. So if you've got a big decision to make, you're more likely to make a more responsible choice around breakfast, but before lunch.

Starting point is 00:50:40 And that is something you should know. If you find this podcast interesting and you learn a lot, I know I learn a lot, would you please share it with someone you know? They might learn something too. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love Top Ten lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

Starting point is 00:51:11 we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures. You got this. No, I didn't.

Starting point is 00:51:37 Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so either. Of course, I'm Justin. Cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic,

Starting point is 00:51:52 check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

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Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How Saying Less Gets You More & Why Objective Reality is Not Your Reality

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