The You ProjectDr. Bill Sullivan is a world-renowned Scientist, Researcher, Educator and Author who graces us with his vast knowledge and wit on a monthly basis here at TYP, and I couldn't be more grateful. 'Pleased to Meet Me' (subtitle: germs, genes & the curious forces that make us who we are) is the title of his 2020 book and that (among other things) was the focus of our chat for this episode. Enjoy.
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I get a team. Welcome to another installment of the show. I'm with my I'm going to say maybe my favorite scientist at the moment in the world, doctor Bill Sullivan.
Do you know?
Firstly, Hi, Doc, how are you.
I'm doing great? Great, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Just so flattered by the favorite scientists comment. I was a little discombinulated.
Well, I talked to a lot of scientists, and I am a scientist and I work with I love that you are such And I'm not just saying this because we're together, like I love. I love if I'm being honest, I love how much I don't have to prepare because I know how good you are at this and I know what a good science communicator you are. And we spoke about that last time. We've spoken about that before. But you know you, Andrew Huberman's pretty good. You know, the neuroscientist. Do you know who he is? I'm guessing the Huberman guy?
Is that who you said? Yeah, he's come under some fire recently over here?
Yeah, what's he? What's he in troubleful?
Well?
Did he? I got that about some personal relationships? So something or was it something else.
That might be part of it. What I remember specifically are, like, the accusations are a lot of hyperbole in his in his podcasts, Biden error errors, misleading information, and uh, you know that's always difficult when you go on and have these conversations, you know, because you don't have textbooks and papers in front of you to fact check information and real time, so you know, there's got to be some balance struck there. But and again I only know this conversation rather superficially because I was not a follower of his podcast. In fact, I've never even heard of it, to be honest with you, until these accusations started coming down that there's some very alarming errors in some of the podcasts that could be leading misleading people to you know, misbelieve in certain things. And apparently he hawks products, supplements and things of this nature, which automatically, in my mind, puts a conflict of interest in a lot of what he's trying to say. If you're trying to sell something at the same time, you know, you've got to take that information with a grain of salt, because he's probably going to try to market that product at the same time.
I guess that's a it's an ongoing challenge, isn't it Because in terms of like full transparency as a scientist and as a researcher and as an educator, you don't I'm not talking about you or may or him necessarily, but in generally speaking with science, like every scientist is a human and everyone, you know, well most people have like you know, everyone's looking through their filter, and everyone's got pre existing beliefs and values, and I guess everyone to an extent has self interest in there. And one of the challenges I've being fully transparent is sometimes the data isn't what we want, or the outcome is and what we want or expected, or sometimes we've got to unlearned things. You know. It's like this is a very well worn example on my show. But I remember, like I started working in gym's in nineteen eighty two, doc, and you know, originally just as a gym instructor and then a trainer, and then an exercise physiologist as I got more qualified and went back to school and all those things. But you know, I remember teaching essentially the food pyramid for a long time because that's what I thought was groundbreaking science, you know, and then you then at some stage, and lots of other things that I've taught and believed that proved to be either somewhat flawed or completely flawed. And then you kind of got to figure out if you want to protect your ego or just be truthful and go, hey everyone, I fuck, I got this wrong thought. I thought I was teaching you something that was true and valid and authentic and the best science. But it turns out it wasn't. So here's what I know now, right.
I think that's a really good point, and the whole ego question really gets involved, and I think it works both ways. To be honest with you, Craig, someone can be very egotistical to the fact that they will start doubling down on what is demonstrably false and making themselves look really silly in the process. But because of that vanity, they can't let that go or they can't admit that they were wrong. That's an error on that person's Paul but part but I think as an audience or as you know, listeners or readers, we also have to understand that, you know, it's okay for people to be wrong if they admit something that they believed in was false because because new evidence has presented itself. Okay, yea, and they're modifying their opinion. You can't then alt that person for like waffling or not sticking to their guns. Yeah, I think this is a This is a real issue, especially in a politically polarized society where you know the captain of your team, your political party can't do any wrong no matter what. Okay, even if you can, like you got the receipts and you can show look, you are actually wrong about this. But both the politicians as well as some of the partisans have trouble adapting to change. Scientists go through this too, as you probably know, we need our pet theories and our dogmas, and it can be really painful, very unintuitive to let those sorts of things go. But that's how science works. It is an ongoing process, and you should continually adapt your beliefs and opinions based on the evidence rather than trying to find evidence that suit your beliefs and opinions.
And I think when you're trying to find evidence that you know suit your beliefs and opinions, you know, confirmation bias, the old echo chain, but whatever we want to call it, then you're cherity picking data or chery, picking science or pseudoscience that makes you feel good about what you already think. And you know, when your identity and your sense of self are intertwined with a certain idea or ideology or belief, then the idea or the prospect of being open minded or objective or willing to unlearn or put up the end and go I got it wrong. It's almost zero because that belief is part of your identity. So if you attack that belief or that idea, you attack me, so fuck off.
Yeah, and you know it days in the process truth and democracy, those can't hold up in a society that will reject reality in evidence or facts in favor of their own personal beliefs or opinions. You know, if we want to move forward and progress in a productive manner in a society, we can't ignore reality. We have to exercise a level of intellectual humility as well as curiosity to continue to learn as new facts present themselves. As a scientist, I've grown very comfortable with the concept of uncertainty, and I try to apply that to all aspects of my life. I am out one hundred percent sure this is the right way to do something, or that this belief is as strong as I feel it could be. And I've found that to be a much more liberating way to live, you know, a much more satisfying way to live than always having to defend my beliefs or assertions.
And yeah, I mean, I put up It's funny you say this I have. I don't know if you've ever seen, but my Instagram is just about five thousand whiteboard messages that I've handwritten on my whiteboard and then I take a photo of it and I put it up. And the message that I put out any yesterday or the day before was if you're not okay with uncertainty, you won't be okay with life. You guy's life. I mean, life is unpredictable. Life is uncertain. Life is at times uncomfortable, like all the uns all the things we don't want are inevitable. So rather than trying to be certain and right and comfortable all the time, just leaning to what is not necessarily what you want, but rather what is and what is is that you will be wrong, is that you will fuck up, is that you will you will make mistakes, is that you will get embarrassed, that you will look silly. All of those things part of the human experience and absolutely okay.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I think there's a deep rooted evolutionary need for us to maintain a certain status, you know, in our tribe. So way back in the day, when we were just for hunters and gatherers on the planes, living in these small communal groups, your reputation was everything. I mean, that was really important. So we had an evolutionary motive to build a reputation, you know, whether it would be false or true that you know, we're the shit you know, ion attractive mate and you know I've got it going on. So when you when you consider the next time you're struggling to prove yourself right or to satisfy your ego in some argument rather than accept another point of view, think about where that impulse came from. And it all seems so silly, doesn't it. I Mean, we don't need to do that anymore. We don't need that level of security in those relationships. It's just an evolutionary farce that we carry with us today that I think does more harm than it does good in the modern society. You know, it might have been very valuable back on the African planes when we were coming down from the trees. But it really just generates a bunch of stress and anxiety today that is completely unnecessary.
And I think the iron is that well, anyway, my experienced up is that the more the more authentic I am, which obviously sometimes I get trapped up in all my own bullshit, but I try to be truly transparent and authentic and book about the things I got, the numerous things I got wrong and the few things I got right, and my own issues and insecurity and self doubt, imposter syndrome and all the bullshit that comes with being Craig Harper. But the more that I opened that door and just you know, while teaching and coaching and encouraging, but also open the look, I'm a really flawed human having it go, people resonate more with that than the guy who presents himself as knowing everything like and I'm not doing it strategically. It's just a by product where I went, oh wow, I don't need to be the smartest person, not only in the room but in any conversation even right.
So it's interesting that you say people resonate with that, because I do think in certain categories of individuals it certainly does resonate because we've all been there, we've all felt that way. It's something we have in common. But imagine if a politician exuded that attitude, how slammed they would get. I mean, at least in this country they would. I mean, if you had someone who was intellectually humble, or curious or wanted to hear both sides of the story and try to compromise and come to the truth rather than what the party says. You're dead on a rival as a politician, because in this country, at least, you have to be so confident, so authoritative, so sure of yourself that or else you're gonna look weak. And I think that is a really horrible way to go about picking who's going to lead you. I would much rather have Craig Harper for president. You know, someone who has that sort of humility that can admit a mistake or admit that I'm curious to what the other side has to say, you know, or even admit that some of their arguments have merits. So let's investigate a way that we can incorporate both sides of the equation and move forward. That to me seems much more leadership quality and in fact, if you look at businesses, those are the kinds of leaders that technically succeed the most. I think studies have been done on this. Leaders that are kind, who seek compromise and who are humble are much more successful than the tyrannical authoritarians who are full of ego and pride and just say my way or the highway. Those often fall flat on their face. And you can see that with politics as well.
I used to work in radio dot for a long time and I basically was I worked on a there's a station in Melbourne and around Australight out called the Sports Sense Timement Network, which is just called SCN, and we used to have a show called The Science of Sport and I used to do you know for a long time, and we just audience view people. There be general chat, but also people would ring up with questions and sometimes people would ring up with questions that were way out of my pay grade, like the more clinical medical questions than exercise science or physiology you or you know, And I would say to people, yeah, I can't really answer that. I could have a guess, but we definitely don't need the guy on the radio guessing about your knee problem. When I can't see you, I can't assess you. I've never met you, I've never seen you walk or get in or out of a chair, And so I'd be doing me and you were disservice if I gave you some random clinical diet and the producer would say to me, you kind you can't say you don't know, And I'd say to him, but I don't know. I'm not a doctor or a physical therapist as you call him in the States. Over here we call him a physiogm. I'm you know, my job is prescribing exercise and all, you know, But there are times when I just say, look, I have some thoughts and ideas, but that's not sharing in a public place on that, and I would be at best having an educated guess. And after a while I had sorted itself out. They didn't like me saying I don't know, because they're like, you're the expert. I go, I'm the expert on exercise prescription and programming. I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to answer doctor questions. You know.
Yeah, and it would be irresponsible if you did. You know, you're just acknowledging, you know, some of the limits of your knowledge, which I wish more people would do, because we get a lot of people who go way outside their lean and start pontificating on matters of all sorts of things in a very authoritative way. It's perfectly fine to have a conversation and throw opinions and thoughts around, but when you come off as an expert in a field where you're not really an expert in that field, then you start to get into an area that is arguably unethical.
Yes, and also, like the truth is with a lot of especially when we're trying to treat a human, a unique individual human who has their own unique physiology and biology. It's like what will work for you?
Know?
It's like some people can eat nuts and some people can't. It's the same thing, and they both have a body. And some people will do a certain workout and have no post exercise soreness, and some people won't be able to move for three days. And some people will go and do a metation class and feel relaxed and calm and rejuvenated. If you put me in a meditation class, I want to punch someone in the face because it doesn't work for me. Right, Like fuck meditation, Put me in nature, put me on a motorbike. That's when I'm calm, you know. And it's not that it's good or bad, right or wrong. It's trying to understand individually what people need. And there's this very kind of almost generic mindset that you know, I feel this way or I'm dealing with this, and then people go, oh, you know what you need, you need to do that. Well. Maybe there's a lady called Abigail Shreier who I've spoken about this a bit recently, but she wrote a book in the last few months called Bad Therapy, and she was talking about she interviewed lots of great psychotherapists and psychologists and psychiatrists, you know, ladies in their field, and basically what came out is that for some people, talk therapy is brilliant and for other people, talk therapy is terrible, you know, the exact same treatment, so to speak. And so you know, there's this individual variability about what will work for Bill won't work for crying necessarily, because Bill aren't cry and Craig ain't Bill.
Right right, And you can even do that for the individual because what works for you at a certain age might not work for you at a later age, you know, So you've got to keep this one size fits all model, you know, just throw that out the window. Everybody is different and in fact, you are different at you know, variable parts in your life, so you always have to keep an open mind towards that. It goes back to one of these other evolutionary biases that we've had long ago. You know, our brains evolve to make these shortcuts because it's an energy haul. It consumes a huge amount of our caloric intake. So our brain, as wonderful and smart as it is, it takes a lot of mental shortcuts, and generalizing is one of the key ones that it does. It saves a lot of time, and you know, sometimes it gets it right. But when we're doing when we chase these one size fits all models, that's exactly what we're doing. We're just extrapolating one thing and we think it applies to every situation without any exceptions. And that's a really lazy way to go about thinking. And I think when you're talking in terms of like exercise, regimen, diet therapy, and in my field, personalized medicine is all the rave these days, so we're seeing the same concept being applied across all these different disciplines where even with medication, you know, you would think we're all human beings. This pill should do the same thing in person A as it does for person B. Most of the time, it probably does, but there are exceptions out there. Okay. There are sex differences, for example, that are very clear. There are age differences, that's the most obvious one. There's body size differences. Okay. So this wave of personalized medicine hopefully will make you know, future pharmaceuticals much more amenable to individual people and will find more targeted treatments, and you can apply that same principle across the board, like with psychological therapy, talk therapy as you mentioned, and even diet and exercise programs. So people should never get frustrated that something that worked for one person isn't working for them. You know, it's not like it's your fault or anything. It's probably something biological that you have no control over, and you're just going to find a different solution.
What do you think about Like last time we spoke about, I think that the show was well, the show is definitely around you know, people being able to apply scientific ideas and principles and practices, even though they're not scientists. That's what we spoke about.
But what do you think about the idea of us you know, an equals one, but say putting something into practice for a period of times seven days, for ten days, twenty eight days, and just changing that one variable to see what happens.
So when COVID started in early twenty twenty, you know, Melbourne in Australia was like you could shoot a shotgun up the street and there was because everyone was locked down for like I didn't have another human being come to my house for eight months, right. But anyway, one of the byproducts of that for me was I was moving less and I gained not a lot of weight, but I guess the equivalent of you know, ten pounds maybe four four and a half kilos, and which for me is a lot because I always stay around the same and I just thought, I'm going to cut out lunch. I'm just not going to have lunch for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Because I was we couldn't even go to the gym, so I had to try. I had to figure out how to train at home without all this stuff because the gyms were closed, which is crazy anyway, that's another that's another conversation. But so I cut out lunch for fourteen days, and the first day, what I noticed was that mid afternoon kind of fatigue and tiredness that I was getting, which I was thinking to myself, like, I'm sixty hours fifty six. Then I was thinking, oh, well, Craig, that's because you're fifty six, right, you're old. You get tired in the afternoon, right, that's just suck it up, princess, your future. I first day, I noticed that I didn't have that dip. Second day good, My energy from breakfast to dinner was good. And every every day this tiredness that I'd had disappeared. I lost the weight, my mental energy, my focus, my ability to concentrate, interview people had meaningful everything was better. And my body told me, or taught me, you don't need to eat as much as you eat or as often as you eat. And so that was the last time that was, you know, four years ago that I ate lunch, and wow, so today's still today. You still don't lunch. I breakfast and dinner. And again I don't recommend that to people. It's not a I just tell people what I did, what my what my data was, and my personal experience. And it's funny because if not for that situation, I probably wouldn't have done that, you know. And yeah, it's like I know, for example, if I do some cardio training in the morning, my brain works better through the day. I couldn't give you a number, but it's deffinite, Like there's all of these things that like, your body is this amazing feedback system, this biological feedback system that's always telling you something right, But I think we've become somewhat disconnected from it.
Yeah. Maybe so people don't listen to their body signals as much, or they surrender too easily. Like it sounds like you had an adaption phase. Your body did not adapt too well, missing lunch for the first few days or a week, but you gave it enough time where your body said, Okay, this is what Craig's doing. He really means it. We're just going to have to adjust and your body did so. Yeah we should, I mean, Socrates said, no thyself. And a part of that is understanding and paying attention to what your body is trying to tell you and even if you're you know, if you're a lot of times when we get into trying healthy habits or making healthy changes, our body is resistant at first because it loves the comforts that it previously enjoyed. Forming new habits is difficult because we're abandoning those creature comforts, if you will. But you've got to gut through that, just as you did with you know, this little noontime fast I suppose we can call it. Yeah, you get over those initial hurdles and you'll be surprised at what your body can do. And I think a lot of people, especially in the US, can get by just fine with a lot less food. Okay, we gorge ourselves to the point where, you know, we think it's the norm. We just eat way way too much. I don't think a lot of people count calories much less, you know, pay attention to when they're actually full. They'll just continue to keep on eating. So if people are a little more cognizant of that, I think that would go a long way. And if you have trouble, you know, interpreting some of what your body is telling you, like in the case of diet, you can do things like count calories and things like that. It's a crude measure, but it's relatively effective. It gives you at least some kind of gauge as to what sort of amount of foods you're putting into your body that might be way more than you actually need. So there's a variety of ways you can monitor the signals your body is telling you.
Definitely, I think. Also, you know you were talking in Togo about how you know our body changes over time and maybe what worked for you in your twenties won't work for you in your thirties, forties, fifty.
Like, yeah, I can't eat a plate of hot wings at ten o'clock at night anymore. It just ain't happen. But I used to be like a go to thing when I was young, and I didn't think twice about it. I do it now. Oh man, I probably won't see you again.
You know that's hilarious, right, Well, I grew up in the country, So I grew up in rural Victoria drinking gallons of milk. Well at half a cup of milk. Now I'm out, like it's I can't. I have to, man, Lactose don't go great anymore because you know what is it? It lactise is the enzyme that breaks down lactose. Don't we stop producing as much lactise as we get older and so my body doesn't love it.
Yeah, lactose intolerance is related to that enzyme, right, And you know people who can digest lactose are actually the mutants. Human beings were never meant to ingest milk beyond breastfeeding periods. Okay, that enzyme is supposed to get shut off. But as humans started to migrate and domesticate animals in areas where there wasn't plentiful food, they would rely on the milk that those animals produced in order to survive. So people who continued to make at least some sort of lactase had a survival advantage in those environmental areas. So that's why some people are lactose tolerant. But yeah, you could make an argument that we're not meant to be drinking milk after breastfeeding, but some people can tolerate it, and it's perfectly fine.
Now, I feel like I've been quite negligent of you and your work, and I decided today it's taken us long time to get to this point, but I wanted to talk about your book, which is placed to meet me, jeens, gems and the curious forces that make us who we are. But I wanted, I want to, I want you to kind of and I think almost like the subtext is or like what makes me me? Or what makes us us? So can we talk about your book a little bit? And this is way out of my area of expertise, so I'm going to be completely led by you. But firstly, give us a snapshot of the book and why you wrote the book if you would.
No.
Absolutely, If there's one thing I love to talk about in this world, it's that book. I put my heart and soul into that thing, and it was years in the making, and it grew out of a number of things, primarily the research that I do at Indiana University, but also just an intellectual curiosity of why I like certain things and why other people don't. You know, why I would do this behavior and why other people would not. So I wanted to understand some of the biological, you know, properties that gave rise to those very different behaviors. And the very first one that intrigued me the most was it's a benign example, but it's but it's an interesting one was as I was growing up, I always had this severe aversion to broccoli. I just could not stand that vegetable or its relatives like caulflower and Brussels sprouts, all these cruciferous vegetables. I just put them in my mouth and I just immediately wanted to gag. In fact, my reaction was so bad. If my mom was even cooking these things in the kitchen, I would have to leave because the aroma was was so horrible. And I was kind of surprised because I didn't encounter a lot of people like me. A lot of people could stomach this, you know this what these vegetables very well, and I couldn't understand why they would put this gross thing into their mouth. And it turns out that I was doing some research on this, that there is a gene Okay that is mutated in people like me, and it encodes for a taste bud that recognizes the bitter chemicals that are present in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, and it recognizes them very strongly. It binds to them very tightly, and when that happens on your tongue, it sends a signal to your brain that Oh my god, you just put something poisonous in your mouth. You better spit this out. It's way too bitter. You shouldn't swallow it. But most people, they have a taste bud receptor that doesn't bind to that chemical very tightly, so they don't sense that degree of bitterness that I would sense. So there's twenty five percent of people in the world, according to the estimates, that are these so called supertasters like me, have these taste buds that just bind way too tightly to those bitter chemicals. So in a way, Craig, I'm a genetic mutation and I miss out on some of these vegetables that most people in the world can enjoy. And I even got myself DNA tested to confirm this result, right, and lo and behold, I do have this genetic mutation. I'm a bona fide super taster. My son is not, but my daughter is. So this is a heritable thing. Wow, And that explains why I can't stomach the broccoli. And there's a really interesting evolutionary component to that story in that as we were hunters and gatherers foraging for food, we would experiment with a lot of different plant life you know, different roots and leaves and things like that to find out what was edible. And I would have been one of the people who might have survived. If the rest of the trial I ate something and couldn't detect the bitter chemicals in it, I wouldn't have been able to eat that, So, you know, I would have had an advantage there. So that's the evolutionary angle to that story. And that's just one small example of how there's a biological basis for everything. So people take their tastes in food and drink, you know, very seriously, you know, and they think it's something that is inside of them in their mind that they decide I really like this, or I have a strong palate for such and such. And what these sorts of experiments are telling me is that we don't have control over what we like and dislike in terms of like food and maybe some beverages. We don't control that. That that's a genetic you know, element that we're born with. And you know that that was kind of indicating for me in a way that you know, I could tell my parents, look, I'm a genetic mutant. There was a reason why I was stuffing all this broccoli into my mouth and running to the bathroom. I was spitting it out right, and that was vindicating but also unsettling because it set the thesis for the whole book. I go through example after example after example of all these things we think are in our control. Who Bill decides this, Craig decides that, and it's hogwash. It's not true at all. There are biological bases for just about every personality and behavioral trait that we have.
Wow, that's so interesting. So you weren't just a kid with a bad attitude you would, well.
Some some might, some might dispute that, but yeah, I don't. I don't know how my parents feel about it these days, you know, even though I showed them the data. But yeah, that's what most parents would think. And I can't fault them for that. You know, I would have thought the same thing if I didn't have this knowledge. I was like, shut up and just eat your vegetables. You know they're good for you. But you know, I now have great sympathy for a you know, like my own daughter, a child who says, I really can't handle this, this is too bitter.
Yeah, what about things like psychopathy and sociopathy? How much of that do you think? I don't know if this is your I'm sure you've got an opinion, but how much of that is genetic? How much of that is predetermined? So are you referring to like people who are psychopaths or social rze? Right, So we have a guy on the show regularly who that's his thing he's talking about, and he believes it's a lot about you know, what people are born with their brain chemistry.
There's a lot of evidence to support that hypothesis. And it's really surprising because if there's any behavior that you think a person has control over, it would be how aggressive they are. Okay, And you know, I do think there are certainly some sorts, some sort of therapy and things like that that can help people manage aggression and maybe rage disorder. But there are some really fascinating studies that are signaling two scientists and doctors that there might be a lot more to this equation than we've ever appreciated before. Let me give you a couple quick examples. So most people, you know, they think about genes, and they'll think about you know, how tall are you? You know, your hair color, your eye color, whether you like broccoli or not. Things like that. Physical things, yeah, but genes can actually have a very far reaching effect into psychological things, into the mental dimension that we possess, including how we re act our impulse control, whether we're aggressive or or not. And one of the key genes that has been implicated in this is something called MAOA. It's also called the warrior gene. People don't like that name because a single gene never really governs behavior. Behavior is dictated by hundreds, maybe thousands of genes, So we've got to keep that caveat in mind. But some very interesting studies have been done with this MOOA receptor, and what it does is it encodes an enzyme in our brain that breaks down certain neurotransmitters, and people who are born with the mutation in this receptor, or excuse me, in this particular gene can't break those neurotransmitters down and it leads to a toxic build up that causes them to be aggressive and lose impulse control. And you can make this mutation in mice and they exhibit the same aggressive behavior. So it's a really compelling piece of data that there is at least one part, you know, involving genetics that goes into aggression, and genes of course build our brain and dictate a lot of our brain chemistry. So when we see studies that show certain neurotransmitters are elevated and people who are aggressive, that probably has a genetic root or maybe an epigenetic root, you know, that is responsible for it, and one of the more fascinating things. Sorry if I'm rambling on the answer, but I think it's a really question. It's an important question and has very real moral implications as to how we treat offenders moving forward. Right, So what do you think about something like this? Pedophilia is an awful, awful crime. It's heinous. So there was once this person, this man who never really got in any trouble all of his life, and then all of a sudden started developing urges that were just you know, pedophilic in nature, very heinous things that are just unconscionable. And it turns out shortly after those behaviors were starting to be exhibited, doctors discovered a tumor in his brain. And I forget which section of the brain it was in, but when they removed the tumor, these urges stopped, they went away, So it was pressing up against some part of his brain, and that anomaly was causing those heinous crimes. And lo and behold, that tumor slowly came back, and with it, the pedophilia came back as well. So it's a real nice case of evidence. I mean, it's not nice because it's pedophilia, but it's a compelling piece of evidence. It's a it's a convincing case that when you see some sort of unusual behavior, no matter how disgusting it is, there's a biological route to it, and we're just possibly ignorant as to what is causing it. And then you answer, you get to the real meat of this question. What do you do with a person like that? It obviously wasn't their fault, but we can't let them run amok in society. You know, we have to protect society from individuals like this. But their behavior was obviously biological, out of their control. So that's a real quandary, and that's what this you know, the science is trying to inform what we should do in terms of jurisprudence that will address two issues, one providing justice and two keeping society safe. It's interesting to where the science has brought us. But I do hope God, what it does, I hope it engender is a bit more empathy and sympathy in people when they see anomaloust behavior out there, that it's a there's a biological cause. And that's actually good news because if we can figure it out, we might be able to do something more productive about it.
Yes, yes, I've thought about that before. I'm discussing you know, the way that people are from one of a less scientific explanation, but the way that people are wired. You know, what people are attracted to that they didn't choose, Like, while I'm with you, it's a horrible crime and behavior and we can't obviously be tolerated, and there needs to be a practical strategy to dealing with that in a legal strategy. But you know, even if we wind it back to something less egregious, I guess, like you know, if somebody's attracted you know, same sex couples, you know, it's like I'm heterosexual, I'm homosexual, whatever it is, I'm attracted to this or that, and it's not I didn't choose that. That's just how I am. That's how I'm compelled, you know, it is, it is and even like you know. So the guy that I have on regularly, his name is David Gillespie's a really well known author in Australia, and he talks about even with sociopathy, people who are born basically with an inability to feel empathy. It's not that they are choosing to be bad, although they can still make choices, of course, but they actually don't feel what you and I feel. So if somebody gets hurt, if an old lady falls over one, I'm running over to help. I'm feeling. I'm offering can I drive her home? Can I do it? You know? And I'm genuinely caring because I'm glad that I can feel for people and sympathize as can you. But some people just don't have that. They see someone get hurt, they do not have that response. And that is for one of again a better term, I mean, that is just how they're wired like that. They're not choosing to not feel, they just actually don't feel. And so there are yeah, there are these a myriad of complicated psychological, biological, and sociological and ethical and moral issues that are intertwined which make us uncomfortable, and I do not know the answer. It's like with people that are naturally attracted to children, I don't know. Of course, I hate that behavior and I think there needs to be a criminal consequence and all of that. But yeah, what do we do with those people? Like how do we you know? And it's understandable that people go, oh, fuck them, they can all burn in helen, which people do, and I understand that too, but it also doesn't it doesn't fix the or it doesn't address the problem. You know. Yeah, I don't know, but it is. It is a it's a multi dimensional, complicated thing, and that's you know, these things are not comfortable or easy, but they are nonetheless real and part of the human experience.
Right right, absolutely, And I don't have an answer on where we go forward with this, you know, but I find the data really interesting and it's certainly guide us in making some reform. And I'm a little dismayed that it isn't happening sooner rather than later, because the current penal system is just you know, to lock up criminals with a bunch of other criminals and sometimes put them in solitary confinement. And you know, like you said, most people are just like, fine, lock them away, you know, throw away the key. You know, I don't really care about them, even though the data is telling us that they were born with certain biological predispositions that were completely outside of their control and or grew up in an environment that they didn't choose that kind of brought out some of these really negative behaviors or behavioral problems. And instead of trying to make a genuine effort to rehabilitate people or understand what's wrong, we just have this kind of very crude We're going to lock them up and hope that serving five or ten years behind bars teaches them a lesson. We know categorically that is not working. That does not deter crime, nor does it rehabilitate people. So we should abandon what's not working and use this data to try to move forward and identify maybe a biological intervention that could be much more effective. So that's where I hope things go. And the science is really making a convincing case with every year that goes by. But what the real challenge is going to be convincing people at an emotional level. Because I completely understand that the angst and the anger that goes towards people who commit some of the most heinous crimes. You might be aware that there was this really interesting case recently. I believe it was in the UK. This woman was put away for murdering her own children. I forget how many of them, but you know, the first child or two it was, I believe, addressed as SIDS, the sudden infant death syndrome. But then after like a third or fourth child also died, suspicions deepened and they figured that she must be murdering these children and passing it off as SIDS. Turns out, I don't know how long it's been, but it's been years late. They actually identified a genetic mutation in her children that redisposed them to SIDS. So doesn't appear that she was lying or murdering these children. So this innocent woman, you know, served time for something that was completely out of her control. But our our our brains are resistant to this at the moment. They won't entertain the biological component that underlies aggression and heinous acts. And I think that's that's we need to We need a paradigm shift there in order to get people to reorient how we handle.
Uh.
You know, criminal behavior because our current system has you know, is proving to be really insufficient.
Yeah, that was actually an Australian lighty. Yeah, oh I'm sorry I mixed it up, but everything was right, just the country. But yeah, that was an Australian lighty and or if not, an identical case. But and I think one of the things Bill is is that we look at well, yeah, we look at things that we don't truly understand because we can't understand that. You know, we can't know and understand everything, right, but we look through our lens and we can't really distinguish between our reality and the reality, you know, which is when I go, no, that's offensive, that is offensive, that is bad, that is this, that is that, And for somebody else looking through their window at the same thing, it's not offensive at all. It's funny. And for somebody looking through their window, it's curious and interesting and fascinating and they want to lean in and learn more. For somebody else, that's confusing, right, But I think, you know, we we navigate life. This is part of my passion project and part of my PhD. But you know, there's a thing in psychology called false consensus effect and it essentially speaks to the fact that we think that other people think like us.
Right, Okay, we operate, certainly do yeah, we operate unconsciously on the on the assumption that, for example, my intention when I'm talking to you will be your experience, right.
And so, you know, realizing that the only person in my reality is me. We might be in the as I've said many times on this show, you were in this You and I are in the same conversation at the same time, but we're not in the same experience, not better or worse, just different my experience, your experience. And then and then you think about the thousands of people who listen to this. You know, when we talked about pedophilia, some people might have turned off because that's disgusting and horrible and how dare you bring it up? And other people might have gone, well, this makes me uncomfortable, but that's actually interesting, and somebody else might have had a different response. And it's not about the stimulus but rather our response. But I think we spend so much time going through life not recognizing the window through which we view the world, but rather thinking that is the world. No, dude, that's not the world. That's your version.
Yeah, and that goes back to our brain shortcuts, right where we're trying to generalize and we think everyone thinks just as we do. But you're exactly right. Our interpretation of anything is informed by our previous experiences, which for every person is different. So, yeah, I think you bring up a really good point. We have to be a lot more sensitive when we engage in dialogues or encounter something that you know, we might disagree with at first, and try to figure out why, you know, go back to know thyself, right, Yeah, figure out why the two of you have such different opinions. I think that would be a much more fun and productive discussion than just either calling each other names or ignoring one another.
So let's jump back to your book a little bit. And this might be a dumb question, so rephrase the question to make it better if it's done. But how much of the way that I am, the way that I think, the way that I behave, the way that I show up in the world, my worldview, the way my biology and physiology works. How much of that is predetermined? And how much is me determined?
Ah, well, that's a million dollar question. We may need a full another episode to get to the bottom of that one. But what this kind of gets into are a number of interesting things, the first of which, what do you mean by me? What do you mean by self? This? You're talking like there's some kind of separate entity inside of the body of Craig Harper that is more or less static.
I love it. Now we're going down a philosophical yeah, yeah, yeah, But then we go, okay, so where does my body finish and where do I start? Or am like, because clearly I'm more than a body, but without a body, I'm not right. So psychological, you know, there's my brain and there's my mind. Is my mind even a thing? Or is thought just a byproduct of you know, consciousness arising from the brain, and is the mind just a human construct?
Right?
This whole you know, that's that Socrates know thyself. It's like, yeah, good luck, good luck.
Here we are two thousand years later, still trying to learn about ourselves, and we still have a long way to go. But I love these sorts of you know, philosophical questions where biology starts to blend into these areas that just kind of blow the mind. And I love thinking about these sorts of things. And having these conversations because you know, like we said on the last program, I'm a lifelong learner. I was just floored when I was starting to do research for Pleas to meet Me that some philosophers and even neuroscientists think that the self is a total illusion. You know, they don't think that this really exists. And if you go back and study Buddhism, they figured this out more than two thousand years ago. The entity that we refer to as the self is a complete farce. You know, the past and the future do not exist. The only thing that exists is the moment. And when they say is that, you know, from the scientific perspective, I mean what we now currently view when we think of the self is that it's not a static entity. It's actually constantly changing. So instead of having it to be a thing, we think of the self as more of a process. It is a biochemical reaction that is constantly running. Okay, you can compare it to maybe like a computer program as well, but what you call yourself is never the same moment to moment, So that to me, I think that's just a really mind blowing concept. And all sorts of things can accept the self. You talked about the brain, you know that is obviously the seat of the self. No one thinks that the spleen gives rise to the self, but we certainly know that the brain gives rise to thought and the mind and this ability to make decisions, to deliberate, to think about things. But then you get people like the neuroscientist Robert Sipalski who writes this book called Determined, which is an argument against free will, and his main thesis wonderful book, by the way, I think everyone should read it. The main thesis is very similar to what I started to conclude in the process of writing Please to Meet Me, is that if you consider free will as like a circle, you know, the more you learn about our biology and how it's connected to our actions, that circle is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, way way down. And he takes the position that it's there's no such thing as free will at all. Others take a little more you know, conservative position and say, yeah, there's free will, but not as much as we thought, and yeah, it's a really really interesting concept. And if we don't have free will, but we certainly feel like we do, what does that mean for jurisprudence and morality and things of that nature as well, big, big philosophical questions.
Yeah, I love it. I also think a little bit about the idea of you know, open mindedness and objectivity. One of the questions I ask audience is when I do a corporate gig, when we're opening the door on thinking about thinking, you know, metacognition and theory of mind and all of these kind of how do we see the world and why do we see the world that way? And does it service or sabotage us? Is this idea of open mindedness? And I say, put up your hand if you consider yourself to be as a real open minded and objective And all the hands go up, and then I go, well, none of you are, And then they all get a little bit pissed off at me. And then like, do you have pre existing beliefs and ideas and values and thoughts and experiences, and well, then you're not objective, Like your thinking is formed or informed by you know, if not influenced. So the idea of having this kind of psychological or cognitive clean slate maybe about something you've never encountered before, or but yeah, it's like it feels good to say I'm really open minded, But even me who talks about all this stuff, I know I'm not truly open minded because I already have pre existing stuff. That is the window through which I view the world.
Right, right, and that window through which you view view to the world is going to dictate or influence how you act in the future. So yeah, it not only not only explains how Craig got to be Craig, but it explains pretty much what Craig's going to do next, you know. So, and that gets back to the free will argument that there's nothing magical or supernatural inside of us that can give rise to an independent to an action that's independent of biology. Biology is always going to drive the action. The impulse is going to come from neurons. You know, nothing supernatural about it. And we know this because if we stimulate neurons, they will produce certain responses. If we damage a part of the brain, they can produce certain responses. So everything that gives rise to who we are originates in the brain, and everything in the brain originates from experience, and of course genetics as well. All that's outside of our control. We can't control our genes. We can't control our experiences. You might argue to some degree that you can put yourself in position, you know, to manifest certain experiences. Okay, but you also have to realize that you've had experiences that are going to influence the type of experience you want to have next. And that's where you get into this vicious cycle of there can't possibly be free will m.
It's that, you know, you spoke about Buddhism before. It's like, you know, the observer of your thoughts and being aware of like I think awareness, consciousness, if it's possible, starts with the recognition of your lack of awareness. You know. It's like realizing how unaware I am might ironically be the start of greater awareness you know where you.
Can that's pretty deep. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And I also just like the Buddhists take on how how to live with this sort of you know, these these rather earth shattering ideas about the nature of our self. They use that as a notion to destroy the ego. You know, if you don't have a self, you should not have an ego, and it eliminates your need for attachments to things, to material things, and desires as well. You know, one of the four Noble truths is that there is suffering in the world. These are the Buddhist noble truths. They're suffering. The origin of that suffering is desire. The third noble truth is, if you quench desire, you can quench suffering, and then, you know, the path to enlightenment. Are tools that people can use in order to control desires and then minimize suffering as a result. And what I take away from that whole discussion in addition, is that don't just eliminate suffering in your own world. You know, we put ourselves through a lot of misery that we quite frankly don't need to do, you know, because we're animals and we evolved in a landscape that makes us concerned about things that we don't need to worry about anymore in this modern world. But our brain is wired, you know, to be living in the past. And maybe on the next episode we can talk about those sorts of evolutionary mismasters that makes people miserable in this world of plenty that we should be enjoying, but most people are too stressed out to enjoy it. But what the what I think we can really take away from the buddhists desire to minimize suffering is to extend that to the whole world. You know, anytime you can minimize suffering in anybody's life, you're making a positive contribution to the world. And scientific studies show that when you're altruistic like that, it confers a multitude of health benefits, which I think is just a it's a beautiful thing.
Yeah. I call that having a purpose bigger than yourself, you.
Know exactly, and science backs it up in terms of being good for both physical and mental health.
All right, So that my last question is a red herring that you are not prepared for. It's not even a question. I'm just going to give you a name, and I just want you to riff for one minute and tell me your thoughts. Joe Biden, what's going on?
Joe Biden, presidential candidate for the United States who is running against Donald Trump. So, in the past three and a half years, I think Joe Biden has done a really remarkable job helping this country emerge out of the wreckage that was the COVID pandemic. We all knew it was going to be a challenge. Whoever was going to be at the HELM. So I think he's done a really good job. He's certainly been pro science. He's been encouraging a lot of really good economic principles. The economy really went south, you know, because of the pandemic, and that wasn't his fault. That started earlier. But what I like about Joe Biden is that he is intellectually curious and he's rather humble. He will seek out the opinion of experts. Okay, he won't follow his gut or his intuition. He will listen to expert opinion and formulate a policy based on that. I think that is one of his strong suits, and that's a matter of character that I would prefer to see in leadership.
Wow, I love that. I love that he's There's been a few question marks about his cognitive capacity at the moment. Is that just paople cherry picking moments in time or do you think he's okay or he's in trouble. I mean, you don't know, and I don't know, But what are your thoughts?
Yeah, I certainly don't have a connection with them. If you look at liberal news channels, you know, you won't see that much. But if you follow a conservative social media outlet or watch their news, all you will see are his mistakes and screw ups. And of course, whenever you're out there in the public eye, you're going to be making them. But my god, Craig, what you want to see on the conservative channel is a Donald Trump rally where he just starts rambling worse than I ever do about god knows what. And I can't honestly heads or tails out of this. And when I see people nodding along, I'm like, what the hell is going through your brain right now? This man does not make any sense at all. And that's not media spin, you know. I'm just I'm watching that in context. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and I've listened to Joe Biden, and yes, of course he's going to make some slip ups and mistakes. Any public speaker will, but it's I don't view it as the magnitude of his competitor.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I love chatting with you. It's the easiest gig of my month and maybe the most enjoyable. So the book, the book we're talking about today is called Please to Meet Me jeans Germs and the Curious Forces that make us who we are doctor Bill Sullivan, PhD. I've probably asked you this is this on audio? This book? Yes it is I and I said I would do this before full disclosure and transparency. I didn't do it. As soon as I do. I've got my phone here, I'm going to jump off and get on Audible and buy it right now, and I'm going to listen to it between now and our next chat. So I'm I'm very excited actually, So we'll say goodbye fair but once again, appreciate you. Thanks so much for your time.
Bill, always a pleasure create It's good to see you.
