Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Why It’s a Miracle We Are Here & How Thoughts Affect Your Movement

Episode Date: October 15, 2022

The humble sandwich has been around for thousands of years and eaten all over the world in one form or another. Guess how many sandwiches the average person eats in a year. Do you know why some sandwiches are called subs? Listen as I explore some fascinating sandwich facts to kickoff this episode. https://allthatsinteresting.com/sandwich-history Have you ever asked yourself: Why am I here? What is my purpose? Will my life really matter? What will my legacy be? Listen as I explore these and other questions with Brian Greene. Brian is a theoretical physicist, mathematician, professor at Columbia University and authored several books including, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (https://amzn.to/2GsvlKO). If you have ever wondered about the meaning of life, you will want to hear my conversation with Brian. Why is it that we often run to hug people we haven’t seen in a while? Why do we tend to walk slower when we’re sad? And this is interesting – Parkinson’s patients tend to move slowly but they don’t have to. They could move faster and will move faster if there is a reason to. So what is going on here? What controls the speed at which people move? Reza Shadmehr is a professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of the book Vigor: Neuroeconomics of Movement (https://amzn.to/3ladKpP) . He joins me to discuss this fascinating connection between what goes on in your brain that determines how quickly or slowly you move and why it matters. When it comes to trying to convince someone of something, there is one key ingredient that will make the process a lot easier. A lot of people miss this completely so I will explain what it is. Source: Mark Magnacca author of So What (https://amzn.to/3cT1De3) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Confidently take control of your online world with Avast One — it helps you stay safe from viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, and other cybercrimes! Learn more at https://Avast.com Shopify grows with your business anywhere. Thanks to their endless list of integrations and third-party apps - literally everything you can think of, from on-demand printing, to accounting, to chatbots - everything you need to customize your business to your needs is already in your hands. Sign up for a FREE trial at https://Shopify.com/sysk ! Download Best Fiends for FREE from the App Store or Google play. Plus, earn even more with $5 worth of in-game rewards when you reach level five!  Did you know you could reduce the number of unwanted calls & emails with Online Privacy Protection from Discover? - And it's FREE! Just activate it in the Discover App. See terms & learn more at https://Discover.com/Online https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready?

Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why are some sandwiches called subs? I'll explain that. Then a fascinating discussion on why we're here, why we're here now, and why we're here at all. When you recognize that we are the product of a series of quantum events that reach all the way back to the Big Bang, then each of the quantum events that took place could have turned out differently, yielding a world in which we would not be here, and yet we are here.

Then, a simple way to be more convincing and a fascinating look at the speed at which you move. What causes you to sometimes move fast and sometimes slow? You know, you will walk slower after having had a bad experience. You will walk faster after having had a good experience. You will walk faster toward people that you care more about. All this today on Something You Should Know. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly.

In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com.

Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers hi welcome to something you should know depending on when you listen to this podcast perhaps you're eating lunch. And perhaps you're having a sandwich. And that is some interesting food. The sandwich is at least a couple of thousand years old, and it got its name in the 1700s from the Earl of Sandwich in England. But the term sandwich wasn't widely used in the U.S. until the late 1800s. The average American eats 193 sandwiches per year, and the all-time favorite is the ham sandwich.

By the time the typical student graduates from high school, he or she will have eaten 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Food historians believe that the grilled cheese sandwich got its start in the 1920s, when sliced bread and American cheese were both introduced. Originally, it was an open-face sandwich, and it was broiled. It wasn't until the 1960s that the top piece of bread was added, and it was grilled in the pan. During World War II, a deli in New London, Connecticut, got a call from a nearby U.S. Navy base.

They placed an order for 500 hero sandwiches. From that day forward, any time a customer ordered a hero sandwich, the employees at the deli called it a sub. The nickname spread, and the term sub is now used all over the country. And that is something you should know. It said that we humans are the only species that can contemplate our own existence and our own death. We know we will die one day and knowing that drives a desire in us to make our lives matter. So we strive to live as long as we can, and do things that will make a difference,

and to find meaning and joy in life, given who we are, where we are, and the time in which we live. And that's what we're going to talk about today with Brian Green. And Brian's one of my favorite guests because every time he comes on here, every time I talk to him, he always makes me think about things I hadn't thought before. Brian is a theoretical physicist, mathematician, professor at Columbia University. He's done a lot of TV shows, authored several books, and his latest book is called Until the End of Time, Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. Hey, Brian. Great to be here. So usually you write books about the universe and astronomy and things, and this topic is completely different.

So explain how you're coming at this. There is a long standing realization that our own mortality has a profound impact on how we live our lives, on the choices that we make, and the undertakings that we seek and the achievements that we set ourselves. And within that, there's a equally long and highly related tradition of valuing those things that last, those things that are not mortal, those things that will be with us for time immemorial. And that is what I mean by the law of eternity. Our psyche is set up in such a way that we value and place a great deal of emphasis on things that will last. And we do that because we want to leave a legacy?

Partly, certainly. I think there are different answers for different people. And among the reasons, of course, that we value eternity is that we do want our lives to matter in the sense that our lives have an impact. And there's a sense in which the longer the impact, the more we feel that we've had a life that was well lived, that we've had a life of consequence. Well, there is the perspective that a lot of people, I guess, take, is that it doesn't matter much, that we're here, and one day we're gone, and that's the end of that. So none of this really matters. Coming to the conclusion that nothing matters

is a direction that doesn't resonate with me at all, especially, and this I think is the more important point, when you take the perspective of the physicist, when you take the cosmological perspective, you recognize that on cosmic scales, not human scales, not planetary scales, not stellar scales, but on cosmic scales, everything ultimately does fall apart. Everything ultimately does dissolve. Everything does ultimately wither

away. This is basically the second law of thermodynamics and entropy and action. And when you see things in that context, then the statement that you made, in some sense, can have an even greater pull, because no matter what impact an individual might have, say, on the lives of those around them, or even on their progeny, or even in subsequent generations, ultimately, it all goes away. So that can certainly leave you with a sense of it not mattering at all. Now, that is not the conclusion that I draw, but I can certainly understand the chain of reasoning that leads one to that perspective. So given what you just said, what conclusion do you draw? You know, I've gone on a journey of the sort that we're describing. There was a time

when all of my emphasis was looking toward the future. It was, you know, trying to work out some new understanding of unified theories of physics that might be everlasting. It might reveal the deepest truths of the world. And that to me was where value and purpose and meaning derive. That's really where I was as a as a younger person, as a younger physicist. But frankly, coming to grips with the implications of physics itself, which is what I just described, that everything ultimately does fall apart, had a profound impact on me. I now take a view that's quite familiar to anybody who meditates or who's done philosophical reading or has listened to mindfulness teachers through the ages. the focus on the present and the recognition that there's deep wonder and a deep sense of gratitude. I don't have any other word to use than gratitude, a deep gratitude for being here at all. When you recognize that we are the product of a series of quantum events that reach all the way back to the Big Bang and stretch from that distant moment in time until our own birth. And each of the quantum events that took place could have turned out differently.

It could have turned out that way instead of this, yielding a world in which we would not be here. And yet we are here against those astounding odds. And more than that, we're not just here. We can do things. We can create beauty. We can illuminate mystery. We can experience wonder right here, right now. And that really is where my sense of meaning has shifted due to these

cosmological considerations. And when you look at all those random events that had to happen in the way they happened for us to be here, do you as a scientist say that's amazingly interesting science, or do you start to think maybe there's a bigger thing going on here? Well, you can't help but wonder about a bigger thing. And unlike some of my colleagues who scoff at these ideas, scoff at religion and scoff at sort of a spiritual look at the world. My view is that's a deep part of our own heritage. And it's a beautiful part in which we have tried to not only understand the external world, and that's where science really does a great job,

but we've also tried to understand the inner world of conscious experience, the inner world of being a living system, walking around on a rock that's orbiting a nondescript star in the suburbs of an ordinary galaxy. And so while I don't take the perspective that you need any religious or something bigger, if you will, to explain the external world. I think physics does a really great job at that and will continue to do an ever greater job as our understanding refines. I do have a great deal of value and a great deal of respect for the inner journey that our species has undergone for millennia. And that

often has involved the idea of something bigger. When you look at the way humans are, from your perspective, are we amazingly special? Because it seems like we are in the sense that, I mean, the world could have been inhabited by bugs and worms where nobody really, no creatures thought about things or tried to make things better. They just tried to survive and multiply. But we do more than that. And are we special, do you think? I'd like to frame it in this way. There are three momentous events that are part of our past. The origin, the beginning

of the universe, the origin, the beginning of life, the origin, the beginning of consciousness. And so we are among those collections of particles that not only exist in the universe, that not only are living systems within the universe, but are conscious living systems within the universe. We're not unique in that way. There are other conscious beings that walk the surface of our planet, and who knows what happens out there in the wider cosmos. But certainly the quality of self-awareness, the quality of the inner voice that we can hear chattering between our ears and our own awareness that we are aware to our ability to turn the lens, the spotlight of observation inward and examine what happens within ourselves as opposed to just the lens, the spotlight of observation inward and examine what happens within ourselves

as opposed to just the external world, that's deeply special. I'm not saying it's special in the sense that it is necessarily unique, but there are certain kinds of questions that at least on planet Earth, we are the only species that I believe can contemplate. We're the only species that can contemplate our own mortality. And some will immediately fire back and say, well, come on.

I mean, there are other species like elephants that mourn their dead. And there are examples of that in the animal kingdom. And of course, it's not the case that we're the only species that can react to the loss of a member of our group as we can, as elephants can, as other species can as well. But I just think it quite unlikely that elephants are walking around for a lot of their life contemplating meaning, purpose, contemplating their own mortality and wondering why they're here at all. I think we are unique in the ability to contemplate certain kinds of questions. And that is quite special. Yeah, well, I like to think I'm special. Brian Green is my guest. He is a theoretical physicist and author of the book, Until the End of Time, Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe.

Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful, as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great

Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. So, Brian, you know, I sometimes think that not being able to contemplate your own mortality would be nice. That, you know, that ignorance that if you can't contemplate your own death, you don't waste time contemplating your own death because there isn't anything you can do about it anyway. Well, it can do some good. And the flip side is, I don't think that we really have the capacity not to contemplate it, even if not explicitly, then certainly implicitly. I mean, you know, some of the greatest poetry, the greatest literature, the greatest music has arisen from members of our species grappling with these deep questions of existence. And the deep questions of existence take a different flavor if we were immortal. They do in a very deep and not necessarily positive way. So I think there is great value in contemplating the reality of the world.

But the remark that I was also making, there's this great body of scientific evidence now, and it really does come from a group of researchers who I have great respect for, these terror management theorists, who have accumulated a great deal of experimental, psychological data, which shows that we human beings, even if we don't think that knowledge of our own mortality is affecting how we behave and what we do, it actually is in a very deep and measurable way. might want to have the blissful ignorance of not thinking about your own finite nature. We're all aware of it. It's always there. And it does deeply impact us. And so when the dust all settles on this, what's your big aha? What's your big takeaway? What's your big thing you want people to get? To my mind, the most important lesson and the real theme that I want people to take away is to be able to see their lives within a much different narrative, a much larger narrative, a much longer narrative, and one in which they are a vital, if infinitesimal, part. And the ability to find meaning and value and purpose within that narrative to me adds a certain kind of reverence for life that I've not been able to achieve in any other way. You know, when you can actually see yourself as part of this large narrative, and you take it in fully, I feel that it has a dramatic impact

on the way you think about your place in the cosmic order. But when you say, you know, to help people find meaning or to find their place, it's a little confusing to know, you know, what does that mean? I mean, does it mean just whatever you want it to mean? It does in a sense. It does in a sense, because the last thing that I would ever say is that there is a unique purpose, a unique means of finding value and meaning. Rather, it sets a framework within which you are given latitude to think about your life in a different way, to no longer think about the typical things that I think many of us, even as a knee-jerk reaction, even without thinking about it, do focus upon, which is the idea of legacy. It is the idea of what we will leave behind. That way of thinking about things, when you shine the bright light of cosmological thinking,

becomes something that no longer is satisfying, no longer holds the weight that it otherwise would, and it frees the mind. At least it has freed my mind, and certainly many who have I spoken to, it frees the mind to look at your life in a different way. And again, the way you look at your life is what is just the joy of being here now, rather than trying to leave some huge legacy that will rot and die anyway. Yeah, that's definitely part of it. But I can even be more specific because now if we talk about me as an individual, I can pinpoint with greater precision the things that do give me that sense of value at the moment. And it is thinking about physics. It is thinking about the fundamental laws.

But it's not in the context of needing to refashion those laws or leave my own personal imprint on those laws. It's the mere joy of thinking about the deep insights that we as a species have been able to come to. I mean, when I look at Einstein's equations of the general theory of relativity, R mu nu minus a half G mu nu R equals eight pi g over C to the fourth T mu nu. When I look at that equation, it fills me with awe. It fills me with wonder. It fills me with the kind of reaction that I have when looking at a great Rodin sculpture. It fills me with the same kind of sensation that I get when listening to Brahms' Third Symphony.

And it's just a recognition of how spectacular it is that a mere collection of particles encased in a structure that we call the human body is able to create these things. It's able to figure these things out. It's able to appreciate the deep structure of the world. And that, to me, is where the value comes from. So it's more or less, or I don't know, you tell me, it's more or less that you're just living in awe of the moment, rather than trying to find some big meaning in the future. Absolutely. And it's a familiar message. So as I said at the outset, it is the kind of way of looking at the world that anybody who has engaged in meditation or mindfulness teachings, mindfulness thinking, is quite

familiar with. It's an idea that we can trace through the philosophical literature. There have been schools of thought that have been devoted to this. The novelty for me and for many people that have written to me after reading my book, the novelty is the way that we get to this perspective. And we get to this perspective not by focusing upon human beings per se not by focusing upon life on planet Earth per se but rather by focusing upon the totality of time from the beginning to the end and the argument is that by placing human life by placing solar systems and stars and galaxies within that cosmological

unfolding, that is where the shift in attention to the now emerges. And then that shift to the attention of now emerges in your mind, and it changes your life and your behavior how in in ways that are both manifest and subtle it's a different way of evaluating things that happen in a in a day-to-day way and And it's a different way of contemplating the big turning points in life. I mean, look, my mother died June 6th from the virus. And that was a moment that I, in some sense, lived in terror of since I was a young child.

I mean, like most kids, right? The most terrifying thing that I could imagine as a young kid was a young child. I mean, like most kids, right? The most terrifying thing that I could imagine as a young kid was losing my mom. And certainly as I got older, I matured and became adjusted to the fact that the natural order of things was that she would leave this earth before me. But I was still often deeply terrified of what life would be like on my own, so to speak, without a parent. And spending time over the course of a couple decades thinking about things in the way that we've been discussing gradually shifted my view on what it means to be mortal and what it means to lose someone because we are mortal. And it had a profound impact on my own reaction to the loss of my mom. So in,

in, again, in ways manifest and subtle, this perspective can have a deep impact. And the perspective that changed made it more acceptable, made it less painful. What, what, so what is it?

You know, it's a good question. I'm not sure if I would describe it in exactly that way, but it certainly allowed me to cope in a different way. It allowed me to see her life and my life and the life of my wife and my kids my family, within a different rubric. And with a rubric that is more focused on now, as opposed to that receding future I made reference to before. And that, yeah, it definitely changed my way of reacting. Since the title of your book is Until the End of Time, it kind of begs the question, will time end? Will eternity go on forever? Or will eternity one day stop? It's an unknown, certainly an unknown question, a deep question. But whether that is ultimately a finite duration into the future or an infinite duration, nobody knows.

And you're absolutely right. It is a very hard concept to grasp because in everyday life, in common experience, and this goes all the way back to our earliest forebears walking along the African savannah. Everything that we encounter in the world around us has a beginning, has a middle, has an end. It exists for a finite duration, the things of everyday experience. And so we naturally try to use that same rubric in thinking about time itself, that time has a beginning, there's a stretch in the middle, and that time ultimately will come to an end. But that extrapolation is not necessarily justified. So we may need a different mindset and a different language to think about time itself. Time itself may have no beginning. Time itself may have no end. Time may just be.

Again, we don't know if that's true, but it's certainly a possibility that is compatible with all we know. Well, I always enjoy our conversations. You always make me think in a way that I haven't thought before, and hopefully you've done that for everyone listening as well. Brian Green has been my guest. He is a theoretical physicist, a mathematician, professor at Columbia University, and his latest book is called Until the End of Time, Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks so much, Brian. I really enjoyed it. Well, thanks, Mike.

It has been a pleasure. Thank you. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. 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 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 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. Here is something you've likely never thought about before, but it's really interesting. How you move is directly associated with how you feel and how you think. When you're happy and excited, you tend to move more quickly. When you're sad and depressed, you move slower. And here's something interesting. People with Parkinson's disease generally move pretty slow. But in many cases, they don't have to move slow. Most could probably move pretty quickly if the house was on fire or they were threatened by something. So why is that? There's something going on in

your brain that determines how you move and the speed you move. And here to discuss that and explain why it's important is Reza Shadmer. He is a professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of book, Vigor, Neuroeconomics of Movement Control. Hi, Reza. Hi, Mike. Good to be with you. So, I didn't know this was a thing until I saw it, this whole idea of vigor and movement and the brain and all this. I didn't know this was an area of study. I didn't know any of this. So, clearly, it is a thing. So, what is it? What is the thing? What is vigor? What are

you talking about? My story really begins when I was younger, I was at the airport waiting for my wife and plane was late. So I was sitting outside the security area and I couldn't help but notice how different people moved when they came out of the security area. You know, if you had your family waiting for you, the person would inevitably run toward the other person. But if there was just a, you know, limo driver waiting for them with a sign that had their name on it, they would just, you know, walk to them normally. So it was curious how the value, it seemed, that the person assigned to their destination was influencing the vigor with which they moved to that goal. And so, as soon as you say that, okay, I get it. I understand that, you know, when you land at the airport, you know, people will run towards you because they haven't seen you in a while.

But why is this, Everybody knows that. So why is this important? There's a whole field of economics that tries to understand how you make decisions based on the value that you assign to your options. And the insight that came from that simple observation at the airport was that maybe we don't need to ask you whether you prefer A or B. Maybe all we need to do is how you move toward A versus how you move toward B. Well, what's really interesting to me about this when I started to think about it is, so if I meet someone at the airport and I'm very excited to see them and I run to hug them, I think that's a conscious choice I'm making. I'm deciding to run to them. But why? I'm going to hug them

four seconds sooner than if I just walk to them. The benefit is not great. So why did I run? This is where the story links to dopamine and Parkinson's disease. How so? My good friend John Krakauer is a neurologist who studies Parkinson. And many years ago, he was mentioning to me how in PD, of course, there is what's called bradykinesia. You move slow. But it isn't that the patients are unable to move fast. If the alarm bell rings, the patient who was bedridden might be able to get up and walk out the room. So it isn't an inability to move. It is almost as if the economic cost of movement has been elevated. And so you're just unwilling to spend the effort to make those movements. But if one could figure out how to provide you with the incentive, you could make the movement. So if someone has Parkinson's disease,

is it a conscious choice not to move or not to move quickly? Do they realize what they're doing or not doing? Yeah, I don't think it's a conscious choice. Much the same as when you see someone you love, you reflexively run toward them. It's just, It changes your state when you are surprised by a good thing. It's the same thing as after you've had a bad experience, you walk away slowly.

It affects your mood. It affects also how you move. It's just because it's influencing your brain, and that influence is affecting how you move. It's just because it's influencing your brain and that influence is affecting how you move. And the ideas have been by looking at your movements, can we understand the influence of these rewards, efforts, and how it's making you feel the way you do? If I'm a healthy person who's lying on the couch and relaxed and I don't want to get up, I could get up. Like you say, if the alarms went off, I'd get up and I'd walk out the door. I'd maybe run out the door.

But I don't want to get up. And getting up seems hard. Is that kind of the same thing? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a very nice way to put it, that the reward associated with the goal of getting up is simply not worth the effort for me to spend it. When we run to someone that we see that we haven't seen in a long time at the airport, why do we run? What's the benefit? I mean, why do we not just walk faster? What's the trigger?

It's a wonderful, really, that's a central question. What is good about that? And, you know, in biology, we only understand what is good from some evolutionary standpoint. You know, why is it better for the organism to spend the effort if there is greater reward at the end. And the idea is that you are attempting to spend energy in order to buy time. And what's good about that is that there have been some experiments done in animals that looks at the relationship between how much reward they get and how much effort they have to spend to get that reward. And basically, animals who can get the reward relatively cheaply without spending effort, well, they get to have more babies and they get to live a longer life. So they basically seem to, it's beneficial for us to be able to get the good stuff without having to spend a whole lot of effort.

Now, when we do spend effort, what we're doing is that we are shortening the time to getting reward, which suggests that the currency that the brain is trying to improve upon is some rate, which is how much reward per second am I getting? And if I can get that reward sooner, well, then what I'm doing is improving my rate of reward. So it isn't just that you get to hug somebody two seconds quicker than you would have if you walked. It's much deeper than that. There is this duality between reward, how much good there is out there, and effort, how much effort I'm willing to spend.

And both of them seem to have something to do with this interesting neurotransmitter, dopamine, that gets released both when I get something good and when I'm about to spend a bit of effort. Just this classic IKEA effect, the idea that if you built it, somehow it means something more to you. You wouldn't sell it as cheaply as something that was perhaps given to you.

It goes back to the notion of dollar earned is better than dollar given. I wonder if it is the fact that when we are spending effort, we are enjoying these neurotransmitters, dopamine, that we tend to get when we get reward. And so somehow that item that we spent effort on becomes valuable to us. Isn't it when I build my IKEA furniture, isn't it just that sense of accomplishment that I finish the job that feels so good? Actually, it's the actual expenditure of the effort that seems to release this neurotransmitter.

So when mice are given free food, as opposed to having to go spend time pressing levers to get that same food, they end up valuing the food that they got after pressing levers, even though they spend more effort to get it, more than the food that they got for free. So, knowing all this, what do we do now? So, now that this looks like this connection is there, so, I guess I've asked it before, but so what do we do with it? So what? So, it's interesting to observe, but now what?

There's a concern, and the concern is this. You know, with the fact that cameras are everywhere now, I think in the distant, not so distant future, it might be pretty easy for these cameras to measure our movements in its minute ways. So not just how we're walking, but how we're moving our eyes. And if it was possible to measure movements that well, then I worry that the data would reveal how we value things that we are looking at. And, you know, it would potentially provide information about this dark secret inside of us, which is how much more do we like this to that? And let's put aside eye movements. Let's look at your reaching.

Let's look at how fast you reach toward some candy bars. And by measuring how rapidly you begin your movement when you're shown a candy bar and how fast you reach toward it, again, you are able to have a reasonably good guess at which candy bar this person likes more. But aren't there a lot of other factors like how hungry you are when you last had one? I mean, aren't there a lot of other things at play here? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Your history matters a lot. And as I mentioned, you know, you will walk slower after having had a bad experience. You will walk faster after having had a good experience. You will walk faster toward people that you care more about. So the state that you're in and your history will certainly influence.

It seems that so many things affect how you move. I mean, if you're tired, you're going to move slower. If you're, at least in pre-pandemic days, if you're walking down the street in New York City, you're probably walking a lot faster than if you're walking down a street in a rural town in Vermont, because everyone around you on the sidewalk in New York City is walking fast, so you walk fast.

The first indication of this was a paper that appeared in the 70s where the authors went to New York, went to various cities around the world, and measured how fast people walked. And just as you say, what they found was that in places like New York, places where there was greater population, there seemed to be this vigor. People walked faster in those places on average. And the interpretation that they had was that, well, maybe this is some kind of an avoidance that people have. Maybe crowds make it so that you want to avoid this density and get to your destination as early as possible. Another interpretation is the following. There are, of course, many things that affect how you walk, temperature, your fatigue, various things. But if one could normalize for all those things,

you might still find that people in certain places, New York, they tend to walk faster than a small town. And you might ask, why is that? And we don't know the answer. But one thing that is the case that correlates with speed of walking in various cities is something to do with availability of opportunities, meaning that, again, that concept of how much reward is out there for you in this environment that you're at. And in animal studies, what's found is that when you are in a rich environment where there are trees full of fruit, the animal moves faster than in a poor environment where there are trees full of fruit, the animal moves faster than in a poor environment where there are only a few things to enjoy.

So we don't know why people walk faster in certain cities than villages, but what we do know is that the density of reward makes it so that the brain will basically see opportunity and want to spend the effort to get as much reward as possible. Well, I still think one of the reasons you walk fast in New York is because everybody else is walking fast, and if you didn't, they'd walk all over you. But also, I mean, there are other things that affect your movements. As you age, older people, elderly people move slower because, well, because they're, I guess, because they're older.

It used to be thought that maybe that's because there's decay associated with neuromuscular components of our body. Maybe the muscles are becoming a little bit weaker, which they certainly are. But the new idea is maybe there's a change in that effort to reward balance because we do know that dopamine declines as people age and so this question of why do we move slower is of interest because it's not just we walk slower our psychotic eye movements are become slower. So is it something to do with this economic balance between how rewarding we see our destination and how much effort we're about to spend? Again, this comes back to Parkinson's disease and sort of the extreme of

a dopamine disorder, which is to have very little dopamine, there you see extremely slow movements. And so is aging a little bit related to what's taking place with the decline in the dopamine system? That's an open question. Yeah, well, couldn't it just also be aches and pains? You know, it's a little harder to move when you get older. What's interesting is that the way you move your eyes, they don't have aches and pains, right? But even they slow down.

And so does driving and everything else. And I remember Jerry Seinfeld used to do a thing in his act about, you're close to the end, why not speed up? Why slow down? Exactly. What a beautiful point. Remember, I guess, what I was mentioning about how you're spending effort to buy time when you move fast. And you know what happens as we grow older, we become more patient. I have this image of visiting Moscow in the time of Gorbachev.

I was just a graduate student. And I remember those long lines, people waiting for food. And invariably, the people that were waiting in lines were elderly. And I think that our patience and as we age, we become more patient in our decision making. It's thought that what that means is that time, passage of time, doesn't discount reward as fast as when you were younger. The idea being that an hour isn't that long of a time to wait when you're elderly, but whereas an hour may be too long to wait when you're a teenager. And so maybe that also is related to the dopamine system

and how it evaluates passage of time, which then would influence movement. So has anybody tried, you said in the beginning, that Parkinson's patients, for example, move slow not because they have to, but because they choose to, because the reward for moving quick isn't there. What if you create the reward for moving quick isn't there. What if you create the reward? You find out what it is that delights them and say, if you'll get up and move faster than you've ever moved,

you can have chocolate cake or whatever it is. Does that work? There are experiments like this where monetary reward is presented or a sense of urgency is placed. And I'll give you an example. So say that there's a ball that you place on a table and you ask the patient to pick it up. They will reach slowly. Now let's put the ball in motion so it's moving. Let's have it move toward the edge of the table. Make it so that if you don't reach for it quickly, the ball is going to fall off the table. There you will see that they will move faster. Because they can. Because they can,

and because the consequence of moving slow here are a loss. The ball is going to fall to the ground. And so there's this sense of urgency for the movement when there's going to be something unpleasant that might take place if you don't do it. And then they can move faster. So there's this economic decision-making process going on in the brain. And I think it's subconscious that what's the amount of effort I should spend to do this task? And nothing's going to happen if I reach slow, if the ball is just sitting there. But if I reach slow and the ball is moving and it's about to fall to the ground, then there's going to be a negative consequence.

Let's try to get it and prevent it. The thing about this that really captured my attention in the beginning was what you said about at an airport. Why do we run to people at an airport? And it doesn't make logical sense. It's just, it's an expression of emotion, and it's driven by emotion. One of the things I tell my students is, if you want to know something about how someone cares about you, you should probably pay attention to how they move towards you.

Well, that's a great idea, and that could be very, very telling. Well, this has been great. I've been talking with Reza Shadmer. He is a professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and his book is called Vigor, Neuroeconomics of Movement Control, and you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you for being here, Reza. Think about how many times today you've tried to convince someone to do something. Whether it's trying to get your kids to brush their teeth or get a company to hire you or sell somebody on some idea you've got,

there's one important element of communication that we all need to understand, and that is this. People don't really care about you or what you're selling until they understand what's in it for them. Self-interest is the one thing that will motivate people to act above everything else, and research has proven it time and time again. This is according to Mark Magnaca, author of the book So What. Here's a great example. AT&T spent over $3 billion trying to promote the picture phone back in the early 70s. It never really got off the ground. Why? Well, the only

what's in it for them was that consumers could see each other when they talk on the phone, and other people could see them. The problem was that nobody really cared. Since they saw nothing really in it for them, consumers ignored it. Figuring out what's in it for the other person will make the job of convincing them to do something a lot easier. And that is something you should know. Our audience is growing and you could help us grow it a little bit more. Just share this podcast with someone you know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 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, 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. 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 sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.