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Your Lizard Brain · Why We Do What We Do

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You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome to Why we do
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what we do. I am your vestigial reptilian host Abraham and I am your
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clearly mammalion host Shane who We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the
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things that humans do and why they do them and what they do that they
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do them for reasons and so that's that's what we do. Yeah, that's
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what we do here. Today we are going to talk about lizards, but
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not like a fun way, in a debunking myth busting sort of way,
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our favorite kind of episode. So, as I said, we are we
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do psychology things, and sometimes we like to unpack the ideas that permeate culture
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that seem to exist out there and that are pretty much demand sturbly false through
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and through. And this will be one such discussion today. And if you're
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joining us for the first time, I'd like to say thank you so much
1:07
for being here. We hope that you enjoy what you hear on this episode
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today, and if you do, then consider supporting us. What you can
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do by leaving us a rating and review, subscribing, liking, telling friends,
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joining us on Patreon, picking up some merchant generally just being a really
1:23
good person and saying it's because we told you to do that thing. Yeah.
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Also, if you're listening to it, to this on the day that
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it publishes, Happy Disneylands Anniversary. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big
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I like Disney. I'm a Disney guy, So for sure I don't have
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any Disney tattoos, which is weird. I should probably remedy that. Get
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that fixed. It's National hot Dog Day and it is National Peach ice cream
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Day, and you know, as you were just mentioning that you don't have
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any so Sheane, most people don't just say I don't have any Disney tattoos.
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It's because Shane has a lot of tattoos and none of them are Disney,
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despite and enjoying Disney. But because it is National Tattoo Day today,
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Shane, on the day this publishes, you can go get your first Disney
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tattoo. I probably should. I mean, I guess if you consider Star
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Wars Disney, then I technically have a Disney tattoo because it's Star Wars.
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But I don't feel like that's the same, you know, Yeah, I
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mean, yeah, well it's not original Disney ip for what it's worth yeah,
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exactly. Anyway, It's also take your Poet to Work Day, so
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if you own a poet, make sure you bring them to work or her
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work, or them to work. Also turn yourself in for enslaving another human.
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Yeah, it is a World's Day for International Criminal Justice, speaking of
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turning oneself in for doing crime. Yeah. It is also World Emoji Day,
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or a return to hieroglyphics. That's right, that's pretty good. And
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this is specifically the movie, right, the Emoji movie. Yeah, yes,
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of course, with Sir Patrick Stewart as the poop emoji. Yes,
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correct, Yeah, just making sure it is wrong way Corrigan Day. I
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don't know what that means. No, Billy Corgan, Yeah, Billy Corgan.
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It's Yellow Pig Day whatever that means too. Apparently this has to do
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with prime numbers. Adding the first four prime numbers yields this fifth prime number,
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which is seventeen, And that has to do with yellow pigs for some
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reason. I don't look too deeply into it. Human, that's as far
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as I got humans, that's all. Yeah. Anywhere we can find a
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pattern, we will impose meaning onto that pattern. It is Coral Reef Awareness
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Week. This I think is very important, and Shane wants to become a
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coral reef one day. Yeah. I will be a coral reef one day.
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That's my that's my goal. Nice, unless you know I'm incinerated by
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a meteor or something like that. Sure, or just by the like the
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weather in Florida. Just by the weather in Florida. I mean, you
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know, to be fair, I think there's enough moisture in the air that
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it would be hard for me to turn to ash gear. Yeah. So
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I think it'd be like more like muck, yeah, more than more like
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a zombie. Yeah, to be gross. Yeah. By the way,
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if you're running for if you're trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, Florida is
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not the place to go, just so you all know. No, no,
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it's not. It's gross. It's already follow zombies. Yeah, no
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thanks. It's also everybody deserves a massage day, which is one percent true.
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I love that. Sure. It is Hemingway Lookalike days. Yeah,
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it's National baby food Week for everybody. Yeah yeah, sure, okay,
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pass. It is National ventral Aquism Week. Okay. It's the Preside meteor
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showers days and weeks where there's some really cool stuff if you if you like
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space things, Oh that's cool. It is sport cliche week, so go
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be a cliche. Yeah, knock it out of the park. It's a
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National Hemp Month. Stoked about that for sure. It is Bank Account Bonus
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Month. Also stoked about that. Yeah. It's also Phone Courtesy Month.
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Big fan of that, especially when you go to the movies. For what
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it's worth. It is also Send an Electronic Greeting Card Day, which is
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funny because we actually just had like National card Day, like it was like
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Act of Random Cardness or something like that or Arcy something like that, and
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I was like, oh, you said you should send an E card instead
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to save paper, And now there's a whole holiday for that. That's fun.
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Yeah. It's also a National Lottery Day for those of you into gambling.
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We did a mini episode about that. You can go check out.
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Chances are you won't get anything, but hey, if you're having fun,
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spend those couple bucks. Hey, yeah, I get some scratchers. And
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then it's also Billy Lord's birthday, So happy birthday, Billy Lord. Yeah,
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Happy birthday, Billy Lord. You're great. We're actually not talking about
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celebrities or sports or holidays or any of that nature. As we said,
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we're actually talking about our lizard brains. And this is a phrase that many
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many of you will likely have heard in various aspects of life. I think
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it's kind of hard to avoid at this point, the whole idea of us
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having a part of our brain that we retained from lizard ancestry. Yeah.
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I think metaphorically it's often used to describe when we decide to engage in some
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kind of impulsive or primal type of behavior. Like it's kind of like it's
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when somebody does something animalistic and people go, yeah, it's because of their
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lizard brain. Their lizard brain kicked in and this is what happened. And
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you know, I don't remember, like recently where I heard it or why,
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but I was like, we got to talk about this because it's not
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it's not but like it's a thing that we had to like look into,
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you know. So that's how we arrived here at doing the lizard brain episode.
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Yeah, I think you're exactly right, and very good point to state
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that upfront that this it's invoked in these situations in which someone is describing I
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think your impulsivity is a very good way of characterizing it, but also sort
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of like just a reactive reflexiveness that looks so or maybe feels looks and feels
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so unavoidably reflexive that it's almost part of our biology, right, It is
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part of our genetics. It is an unavoidable biological necessity that we would behave
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that way, right, Right, it's so close to being there, but
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it's not, because you're just kind of you'll see what we mean when we
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unpack it. So I think what we're trying to answer today, the question
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we're trying to answer is what is lizard brain? What are the effects of
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lizard brain? And what does that look like? And really, ultimately does
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lizard brain even exist in humans? We know lizard brains do exist because lizards
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exist, but does a lizard brain inside of a human actually exist? And
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that's a question that I think we have to unpack. Yeah, yeah,
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I think the implication here is like what is the evidence? What does the
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evidence say? Right? Right, So let's start with what is a lizard
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brain? So we can define our terms, as we said, supposedly,
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it's the it's quote the part of the brain to which primitive, non rational
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or self interested behavior is attributed end quote. And I think I've heard this
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said by people will They'll say something like this person I don't know said this
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thing, and my lizard brain interpreted that to mean, you know, a
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threat. So I got I got it, I reacted, you know,
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I got angry, I lashed out. Might be a way that they talk
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about it is describing how their reaction is attributable to the most reptilian portion of
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their brain, implying in that instance that there is a reptilian portion of their
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brain. Right, but what but like what what is going on here?
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Yeah? A term that is going to come up, and I think that
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we're going to explore a little bit is there's this idea that the lizard brain
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is part of what is describe is the triune brain or the triune brain.
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And the idea of that is that there are parts of our brain, like
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the actual structures of our brain, that are quote independently conscious end quote,
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and they govern our emotions in our final instincts. So this idea of triune
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brain means that we have kind of this portion of our brain or the structures
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in our brain that are separate and kind of operate independently than the rest of
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our brain, even though they're inside of our brain. Okay, we're going
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to unpack that way more in a second. Yeah, so there definitely requires
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some unpacking. But I also think, even metaphorically, I think people are
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talking about this in a sense of like in which it is whether or not
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it operates independently, it is a structure that underlies the like fundamental scaffolding of
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our brain in such a way that the effects of it poke out in these
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instances that you said, the emotions and what you might call primal instincts,
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which is also a whole content scept worth unpacking at some point. But I
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think the history here is is really important to understand, Like, Okay,
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where did we ever get the idea that we have a lizard brain. You
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might even think that this was something that was proposed by Darwin, because he
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talked obviously a lot about evolution and how life came to form complex forms such
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as humans, such as other animals and that sort of thing, and was
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one of the one of the early people to even have that discussion about that
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and back it up also with like actual observational data, And so it would
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make sense to potentially suggest that his hypothesis was that, okay, we all
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started out in this sort of base reptilian form and evolved out of that,
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so we retain some of the biological imprint in our brains from our ancestry belonging
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to those lizards. But it actually was not Darwin. And matter of fact,
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this was a whole century later by a physician, a neuroscientist named Paul
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D. McLean. And this is sometime in the nineteen sixty is a time
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where the future included flying cars and the Beatles hadn't yet discovered lsd ah.
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Yeah, what a time to be alive. I think this is a really
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good point to kind of illustrate that what we are talking about here with this
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reptilian brain, this trying in brain, and this is coming from a physician
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and a neuroscientist, is he's not describing stuff metaphorically like it often gets used.
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He's actually, when we get into the trying brain, he's actually describing
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structures that say, this is the reptilian brain part of your brain, and
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like that. So there is like this is not like indego super ego stuff
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like this is him actually talking about like physical structures in the brain as being
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reptilian in nature. And you'll see kind of what we get into and when
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we get into that. But let's talk about McLean first. So McLean was
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actually pretty accomplished. He was a professor at Eal Medical School, worked at
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the National Institute of Mental Health, which is interesting considering he thought we had
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three brains. Things have hopefully changed since then. Yeah, some other things.
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Some of his other credentials, if you will, some what do they
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call the things that decorate his walls at the office is He served as a
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medical officer in World War Two and worked at the University of Washington Medical School,
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Harvard Medical School, and Yale School of Medicine, So not just Yale,
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but those other two as well. Yeah, I mean publish a paper
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on what was described as the visceral brain, which actually introduced the term limbic
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system. So if you've heard the phrase limbic system, Paul MacLean is the
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reason that that term exists. That's interesting that I definitely did not know prior
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to this episode. Yeah, he was awarded the Distinguished Research Award of the
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Association for Research and Nervous and Mental Disease in nineteen sixty four. And served
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as the chief of the Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior with the National Institute
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of Mental Health. So he was like in it. He was in it
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and like recognized for his accomplishments for the roles that he had played in these
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various institutes and positions. Yeah, I mean, this guy has done the
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work. Like it's not this is not like somebody showing up out of the
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blue and then creating some procedure that doesn't make any sense, like I don't
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know, facilitated communication or something like. It's you know, it shows up
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Like we're talking about like actual accomplishments through neuroscience, through studies, running research
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labs, working for the National Institute of Mental Health. Like, I mean,
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this guy has done some work. Like I couldn't really find a lot
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on his personal life, and so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna begin to
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go down that path. But as far as like professional work goes, I
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think that he's done some pretty cool things. But the thing that he is
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often accredited like for like or the thing that he has done he's credited for
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creating is this reptilian brain. And through his study and the development of some
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of the stuff that he's worked on. He came up with this triune model,
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this trying brain model, which he was able to create as a pretty
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interesting concept within the world of neurology and psychology. But what does any of
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that mean when say tryune brain? What at all are we talking about here?
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And I'm going to leave you on that cliffhanger and run some ads first,
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All right? You stuck around through those ads or skipped them, maybe
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so that you could hear what the triune brain is. Because we're going to
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do our best to unpack this model. And I will say, because we're
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going to say some stuff in here that probably sounds to our modern ears a
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little silly, maybe some of us, I don't know. We are definitely
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in a time of intellectual decline globally, but for some of us this will
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sound silly. But I also think it is worth pointing out that many scientists
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who are very smart, very accomplished, and understood a lot about several parts
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of their perspective fields and ways that were often that it may be felt retrospectively,
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well ahead of their time, who also held very silly pseudo scientific idea
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about things because they just didn't know better. You know they like some people,
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what is now settled science was at the time just a hypothesis, right,
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and so multiple hypotheses existed that seemed like there was sufficient evidence to suggest
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that any one of them could be the right direction. And we look back
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on some of them that were not the right direction, then think, huh,
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how did you ever believe that? But it's because we know better now,
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Like that's that's information that we learn in grade school and so we sort
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of carry it with us, and so just trying to give a little bit
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of cushion, Like he was a guy who was like in a position of
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power in the nineteen sixties, he was probably a piece of sh who knows,
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maybe he was a good guy, but just trying to couch I think
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the theory here or the hypothesis here inside of that context of understanding that we're
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fallible and we just don't know what we don't know in these particular points in
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history. I think it's an excellent point. I think that's what happens with
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science, right. Science is full of hypotheses, and eventually they get pruned
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away on what we discover and what we refute, right, like, and
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then that's just ultimately what happens. And this is one of those ones that
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when it first came up, it was fine to study, and they started
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studying the neuroscience of it, and then it eventually got pruned away by new
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information, right, new study, and like you'll see when we get into
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some of the stuff later that like this wasn't really debunked fully until like two
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years ago, So we're gonna we'll get into some of that. So now,
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in order to understand what we're talking about here, and in order to
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understand what reptilian brain lizard brain is, we have to understand where it fits
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in the model developed by doctor MacLean. So the origin of the lizard brain
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is directly tied to the model of the triune brain. And for those of
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you who are wordsmiths out there, I've said the word trying and brain a
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few times. Try comes from the Latin meaning three, and une or une
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comes from the Latin unus meaning one or unique. So effectively the word triune
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means three and one. That's a good bargain, I think, so,
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especially for brains. Yes, okay, So essentially the idea here of this
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triune brain is that there are three distinct complexes that are related to those above
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those previously mentioned emotions and primal instincts that we've talked about. So we're going
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to go over each one in a little more detail. So the three complexes
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that are hypothesized to exist actually exist as physical structures in every human being's brain
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is the reptilian complex, the paleo mammalian complex, and the neo mammalian complex.
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And so we'll start with the reptilian complex. Yeah, the reptilian complex
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is the name given to the basal ganglia. So in some models this falls
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within the descriptions of the limbic system as well, and so we'll talk a
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little bit about that later. But basically, what the basal ganglia does,
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It is thought that it is responsible for how we make choices, but also
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aids in motor and pre motor cortical areas of the brain. So basically what
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this does allow allows us to make choices about our movements, choices about our
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actions, change our behavior based on circumstances, and helps with kind of the
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fluidity of our movement and like kind of how we are basically responsible for like
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the outward behavior that we engage in, Like our reactions are all controlled supposedly
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by the basal ganglia. Okay, and then there is the palaeomammalian complex,
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and this is the name given to a group of structures that include the septum,
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amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampal complex, and singulate core tex. I should
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have put a trigger warning at the top of this episode that we were going
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to be throwing some neuro jargon at you in large gobs. So this is
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the most gobby part of it, though, so once we're through this,
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there will be less. Yeah. Anyway, as we were saying that this
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group of structures is what he described as the Olympic system, so they're both
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part of the limbic system. So it's interesting. So everything that was described
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in the paleoman million complex, the septom they may deelah, the high hypothalamus,
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like all that stuff is described as part of the limbic system. But
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on some resources I found it also included the basal ganglia as part of the
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limbic system, and some it did not include that. So there is like
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some I think there might be some discourse around that, but I'm not quite
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sure. It was hard to pin down. Okay, Well, sure,
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I guess I feel like I should know the limbic system better, but I'm
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not in the neurology portion of things and have a maybe somewhat controversial view about
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the relative role of the geography of the brain and how it contributes to learning.
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Yeah, we've got some biases over here, I think. Yeah.
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Anyway, So these structures that I mentioned to with the hypotheleamus and themigla and
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all that are said to be responsible for things such as motivation, emotion,
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and behaviors like feeding, reproducing, and parental behavior. And as I said,
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this is the paleo mammalian complex. This is the idea behind what those
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structures are, right, And then the neo mammalian complex is the more complex,
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kind of like set of structures that focuses on this REBD neocortex, which
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is generally found only found in higher mammals, So like more advanced, more
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complicated or quote unquote more evolved mammals tend to have this neo mammalian complex that
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allows for the capacity for language, abstraction, planning, perception, tool use,
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like stuff like that. So you'll see a little bit of that complex
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in those quote unquote like higher intelligence types of mammals. If you want to
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go that route. Okay, So basically they're sort of saying that we know
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that there are these structures in the brain, and they're correct, those are
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all structures that we've identified in the brain, and then sort of drawing a
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line of demarcation to suggest that these certain structures belong to a sort of general
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categorical complex that's related to something with respect to our evolutionary history. So we
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have the reptilian complex is a certain part of the brain, than the palaeo
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mammalian complex is another part, and then basically like it's evolving up right.
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Basically, I think is the way that they sort of see this as you
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have your little germinated part with the basil ganglia that was one of the earliest
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evolved things. Then we evolved on top of that this paleom mammalian thing,
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and now we're getting close to humans, and then we evolve on top of
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that the neo mammalian complex. Now we're at humans. Yeah, and so
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now we've arrived at the pinnacle of evolution, if you will, because our
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brains just keep evolving these new layers to make them better and better. So
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that I think is sort of the underlying idea behind understanding the sort of vestigial,
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primal, older parts of our brain that, as I said, are
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still detectable in our reactive emotive responses to environmental cues, stimuli and situations.
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Yeah. Absolutely, I think you nailed that. And I think another thing
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too, because I think when people hear the word complex, and when they
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hear it in the frame of psychology, I think people tend to think like
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mental health disorders or illness and stuff like that, like somebody's got a complex,
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you know. Sure, But I think because we're talking about neuroscience and
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we're talking about like structure and how to's and stuff like that, what you're
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gonna find is that what they're referencing here is more like a space, like
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you know, like when you go to a complex, like a complex being
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like a structure a series of structures together, And that's kind of how they're
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referring to the complexes here, like they're like structures and like locations in the
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brain made up of that. So that's what they, I think, are
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referring to with complexes here and not like mental illness. If that, if
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that helps kind of maybe give you more like idea on like language and how
22:33
they're describing certain things here too. I think, yeah, I think it
22:36
makes sense to understand why that word was sort of chosen, and maybe there
22:38
was some amount of If you just change the stressed syllable from the first to
22:42
the second, it becomes complex. Yeah, and then maybe that's what they're
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up to. Just kidding, they weren't. That's just me trying to be
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punny and not doing very good job of it. All right, So those
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three complexes, the complex complex complexes, these are the players. Okay,
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the worst sort of talking that we're dealing with here to understand this. So
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how does this work? According to the three in one brain, these structures
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all do operate independently of one another. We have three sort of zones of
23:14
operation that are all going on. Yeah, we're all split personalities for real.
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It's kind of interesting how much this aligns with Freud's theory of like our
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psychiatry, if you will, our psychology, because he also had the sort
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of three sections, and he also had like, here's the fully submerged section
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that we don't really see, but it influences nonetheless. And that's the reptilian
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part, the part that sort of emerges. But most of it's still submerged,
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and that's the paleo mammalian part, and then the part that's fully out
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of the water, if you will use in the iceberg metaphor, and that's
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the neo mammalian. I sort of see a lot that resonates with that.
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Yeah. Anyway, what we were talking about was the structure is well independent,
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may interact with one another, but for the most part, the functions
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are entirely separate, right, And so for instance, the reptilian complex is
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gonna focus on those instinctual or impulsive behaviors, whereas the neo mam million complex
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is going to rain that in a little bit like kind of like a restrictor
24:07
plate for our behavior, for impulsive behavior, like we are more aware of
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that. And so basically what is described inside of this is that even though
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these are separate entities, effectively they're separate locations in the brain. These two
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the neo mammilion and the reptilian complexes are kind of always odds inside of our
24:23
brain because our reptilian brain is going like impulse, impulse, impulse, survival,
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survival, survival, and then the neo a Million's going, Now it's
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okay, we got this, let me language around this, and they kind
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of like go back and forth a little bit. Supposedly this is a stn
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ishingly, like the more we talk about this, the more Freudian it becomes.
24:44
Like this is like, rather than neo Freudian, I'm gonna call it
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neuro Freudian, because like that is that is where this is at right now.
24:52
That's a really great way to put it. It is very neuro Freudian,
24:56
for sure. It's just because this was not a I mean, it
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has survived. This did the test of time so far at least, it
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is still around in many people's ideas. This hasn't been updated in textbooks as
25:11
far as we know. People still talk about it in movies and TV shows
25:15
and podcasts, and like they invoke the idea of the lizard brain and this
25:19
This was endorsed by other very smart, very well known scientists. Carl Sagan
25:25
famously wrote about this in his book Cosmos, stating declaratively and definitively quote,
25:32
deep inside the skull of every one of us, there is something like a
25:34
brain of a crocodile. Surrounding the r complex is the limbic system or mammalian
25:40
brain, which evolved tens of millions of years ago and ancestors who are mammal
25:45
but not yet primates. It is a major source of our moods and emotions
25:48
and our concern and care for the young and finally on the outside, living
25:52
in uneasy truce with the more primitive brains beneath is the cerebral cortex. Civilization
25:57
is a product of the cerebral cortex. End quote. He really did endorse
26:03
and seem to believe this idea that our brain just sort of evolved layers like
26:07
an onion. Yeah, but nevertheless retained the reptilian structure and origins of our
26:14
humble beginnings as sea creatures that eventually wandered on to land. I think it's
26:21
a useful way, like a useful metaphor to describe why we still have like
26:27
things like we need to eat, we need to sleep, we need to
26:30
do those things right, Like I think that gives like shorting the ideas of
26:33
like that's great. I think it makes sense right, Like, so from
26:36
an evolutionary standpoint, we have we evolved to do X, Y and z,
26:40
so like that is you know, like cause you'll hear people talk about
26:42
like genetics that are like ancestral like behavior, Like you'll hear those types of
26:48
things, right, So I think it is useful to understand that, like
26:51
we as an evolved organism have evolved over centuries, millennia, that you know,
26:56
millions of years to do the things that we do, and so there
27:00
is going to be leftover debris from like times where we were hunter gatherers or
27:04
survivalists and stuff like that. So like, I understand where they're coming from.
27:07
But at the end of the day, the question I am left with
27:11
is, but aren't we mammals? It's sort of I mean, depending on
27:21
where you're coming from on this. Yeah, I will answer that question after
27:23
we demonstrate how much we have devolved, and that is with ads. Okay,
27:36
So Shane, before the AD's played, asked if we are mammals,
27:40
and if it isn't lost on you or if it is, we are mammals.
27:42
We have been mammals for some time, sometime I say, longer than
27:48
this year. In fact, oh yeah, at least at least yeah,
27:52
And so this begs the question, if we are mammals, how could we
27:56
have reptile brains? Our older lizard brain is being suppressed by our newer mammalian
28:02
brains. Do they work together? Are they necessarily co run in the show?
28:07
Like what's going on here? Yeah? And I mean at the end
28:11
of the day, we don't have lizard brains, right, Like, and
28:14
I think that, you know, from the perspective of understanding general like animal
28:19
classifications and all of that, from an evolutionary standpoint, we do not have
28:25
lizard brains. Literally metaphorically, what we're getting at is a little bit different,
28:29
right, So, mammalion brains and reptilian brains have and actually, like
28:33
from a literal standpoint, mammalian brains and reptilian brains have both evolved to have
28:38
unique neuron types, so like actual lizard brains and actual mammal brains have different
28:45
neurotypes or neuron types. And the idea is that the mammals brain is you
28:49
know, from the retilian brain standpoint, the idea that a mammal's brain is
28:53
hiding or superimposed onto an ancient lizard brain doesn't really make any evolutionary sense at
29:00
all. Like, what this is basically saying is like, your lizard brain
29:03
is there, and we just put a fresh code of pain on it,
29:06
and then after that we put a new code of pain on it, so
29:08
like the old pain is still there and you can only see it every now
29:12
and again if like the new pain is chipped up or whatever. But that's
29:17
not really how that works as far as organisms go. No, it's not.
29:21
You're right. It doesn't make a lot of evolutionary or conceptual sense when
29:25
we really start to try and unpack how this would work, and it doesn't
29:29
make any biological sense. And then of course we have like what is the
29:32
actual modern neurology telling us, right? But before we get to that again,
29:37
understanding that as mammals, we have some unique features of our brains that
29:44
play a role in our behavior, that influence our behavior in different ways.
29:48
First, higher order mammals tend to have more complex emotions than reptiles. As
29:52
far as we know. We certainly can understand things in a very different way
29:57
based on our language, which means that we can have certain things like jealousy,
30:02
like honor, be something that drives our choices to do things like anxiety.
30:08
I mean, there's probably several that we could unpack, and we don't
30:11
need to necessarily enumerate them all here, but this allows us to create a
30:15
very complex or complex tapestry of behavior because we have such different structures with such
30:22
variety that is just much larger than what you would expect in a non languaging,
30:29
non human animals such as a lizard, and one in particular that has
30:33
a proportionally quite small brain. Right. And so we as mammals, I
30:37
specifically say we being the mammal group, we tend to have better memories than
30:41
reptiles and actually are more capable of recognizing facial expressions too. That's something that
30:45
they've been able to kind of demonstrate, at least as far as we know,
30:48
because you know, I think part of that is like a lot of
30:51
mammals can have like certain mode of expressions that we maybe can't superimpose onto crocodiles.
30:56
You know, crocodiles can't smile the same way that a gorilla can.
31:00
So it's one of those things where as far as we understand and as far
31:03
as like the neural work goes, humans in mammals in general have better memories
31:07
and they're more capable of recognizing facial expressions, right. And mammals also have
31:12
more complex language capacities and social relationships than other types of animals for the most
31:18
part, and this seems to be largely due to how our brains developed in
31:22
a way that social interactions were both meaningful and necessary for our continued survival.
31:30
That we depend on a network of socialization to survive and thrive as a species.
31:36
Now, I mean, there are other animals that do this. Ants
31:38
and bees also have complex social networks that they use to survive. But this
31:42
is something that is also a one of the defining features of mammalian brains and
31:48
as not a defining feature of lizard brains. I think that's really important with
31:53
like the how to and the what it is and all that, But let's
31:57
unpack a little bit about the current research. Let's talk about the actual science
32:01
of this beyond just kind of conjecture and whatnot. So first, I think
32:06
one of those important things that kind of came out to debunk or demystify any
32:09
of this stuff came from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research out of Berlin,
32:14
Germany, and it was determined that both mammals and reptiles do have similar
32:17
but different neuron types, so similar but different, and they have clade specific
32:22
neuron types and clade specific neuron types specifically means and just to kind of give
32:28
you an idea of what clade is. Clade means an unbroken line of evolutionary
32:31
descent. So what that means is we as organisms do not have like a
32:37
divergence in our evolutionary descent as we have gone on, Like we don't have
32:42
a lot of branches that go away where it's kind of like a single line.
32:45
It's the sacred timeline of evolutionary type of practices, right, simply put,
32:50
the neuron types that exist in our species exists specific to our species and
32:55
specific to evolution along the way. Like we can see this, we have
33:00
evolved species that are along our evolutionary line have the same neuron types that are
33:06
also not reptilian. Right, although humans and reptiles did evolve at some point,
33:14
way way, way way back from a common ancestor, they diverged before
33:20
they were distinct as the mammalian and reptilian species that they were, And so
33:25
we wouldn't have had a chance to retain something from reptiles because we never were
33:30
reptiles, just in the same way that reptiles were never humans. And there
33:35
was actually a good quote that I found that just sort of talks about how
33:38
these things evolve in this is In a twenty twenty review article, the scientists
33:44
wrote, quote, complex nervous systems and sophisticated cognitive abilities evolved independently many times
33:52
end quote. They're sort of showing that over history that the evolution that it
33:57
takes, it has formed as part of the evolutionary trajectory for that species,
34:04
and that becomes uniquely identified with that species, right exactly. So, now
34:09
here's the thing I think is really fascinating as part of this, though,
34:13
is that originally when we started talking about this and when this kind of came
34:15
up, MacLean and all those folks, they actually found that during their studies
34:20
of reptilian brains and human brains, they did find similar structures, similar structures
34:23
in the brains lizard and human brains, mammal brains, I should say,
34:28
they did find things like the basil ganglia in both brains, but their sizes
34:32
were different and they were based on the size of the brain proportion to the
34:36
brain. And you found that kind of the structures that existed were formed differently,
34:39
they were shaped differently, but they did exist in multiple types of brains.
34:45
And that lay, I think lends itself to kind of go, ah,
34:47
well, lizards do this, and we have this thing, so we
34:50
must do this thing because we also have lizard brains. Like, that's kind
34:52
of I could see that jump in logic, you know, Yes, I
34:57
understand, and I think it is also worth pointing out that like most land
35:02
based or ocean based or wherever their particular ecosystem is that they developed similar biology
35:08
across the board, meaning that like, we have lungs and lizards have lungs,
35:15
right, also fish have lungs. We also all have eyes, we
35:17
all have something for detecting sound. We all have mouth, we all have
35:21
stomachs. We all digest and process energy by consuming it with a mouth and
35:27
turn that thing that we consumed into energy for our body and then eliminating the
35:31
waste leftover from whatever we didn't were not able to turn into energy. And
35:37
so like, there's a lot biologically that we have in common. And it's
35:40
not evidence to me that we have vestigial leftover lizard parts that again we weren't
35:47
ever lizards, But it makes sense to me to say that we don't have
35:51
those, like our lungs, the fact that we have lungs and lizards have
35:54
lungs is not evidence the fact that there's a vestigial lizard thing, you know,
36:00
that is an adaptive structure for creatures on this planet that they are able
36:04
to consume oxygen necessary for their brain functions to happen. So that that also
36:08
means in my mind that it makes a lot of sense that they we'd also
36:12
have somewhat similar brains because we have some similar bodies, and the brains need
36:15
to do somewhat similar things to have those bodies work the way that they do.
36:21
If we had radically different organs and radically different structures that like you could
36:25
not find that same thing in other species. It would also make sense to
36:30
me that the brain would similarly be set up differently to connect those different systems
36:35
together in a different way. And like we just we've never seen anything like
36:38
that because we evolved from common ancestors on this planet, except that we kind
36:44
of have. If we look at something like a plant, a plant is
36:45
a living organism. It does not have a brain. It also does not
36:50
have lungs or stomach or anything like that, but it does consume. It
36:54
does breathe in a manner of speaking, and it does consume energy and turn
37:00
that energy into growth and production, and then it also excretes waste. So
37:06
like a plant is a thing that has evolved separately on this planet that does
37:09
and so it has different biological structures to it. So anyway, that's just
37:15
thoughts that I have in terms of like, if we're trying to just depend
37:17
on the structure of a thing being evidenced, I just think that's not good
37:21
evidence for this particular phenomenon. Yeah, it's not complete, I mean,
37:24
and that's I think the thing is, like, it's just not a complete
37:27
analysis of that, and it's not I don't think that you can over there's
37:30
not a one to one match on this. So and just kind of like
37:32
talking about brains in general. Right when it comes to basic neurology, the
37:37
mammal brain is made up of large regions and has unique structures that independently are
37:42
likely and I say likely responsible for certain features of the human experience and how
37:45
we process information and how we take in, how we do all these things,
37:49
how we think, how we do everything right. However, what we
37:52
know as of this recording, and I say that as this recording because neurology
37:55
is complex and we have discovered so many new things about the brain and the
38:00
last hundred years that you know, if you're hearing this, five years from
38:02
now, we may discover some brand new thing. But as of this recording,
38:07
we understand the brain is that each region doesn't operate alone. Rather,
38:12
what happens is the brain is an interconnected web of neural networks that allocate and
38:16
reallocate functions, in many cases depending on damage, depending on need, depending
38:22
on all kinds of things. So the brain is this weird, white and
38:25
gray lump of electricity and cells inside of your skull that does all these really
38:31
random things and we barely understand any of it. Yeah. Yeah, it
38:36
coordinates the systems in our body. We know that it does that. How
38:39
it does that, we think we have some ideas, but yeah, I
38:44
think we're we're still nailing it down because, as you said, it's it's
38:47
very complex or very complex depending on where you're coming from, and there's a
38:52
lot. I think we were sort of always looking for if there were specific
39:01
regions that we could associate with specific effects, then attributing those effects to those
39:06
regions specifically in a cause effects type relationship, right, And that has been
39:12
a relatively fruitful line of research. It's been relatively informative and is also shown
39:17
to be only kind of correct because all the parts of our brain need to
39:22
interact for to do its thing right anyway, as you said, the idea
39:27
here is just this, we can't have totally independent brains operating. That doesn't
39:32
make sense. Our brain only works because of its interconnectedness. If it wasn't
39:37
that they were all working together all the time, then it would be a
39:40
much less useful organ than it currently is, which is to say it's pretty
39:45
useful. I think I appreciate my brain. I also appreciate my spleen and
39:49
my kidneys and my liver. Yeah, I love my brain. Yeah,
39:52
yeah, I'd like to keep all of them while I'm alive. You know
39:54
what I've passed. You can have them, but like you know, while
39:58
I'm alive, I'd like to keep them. Yes, But I think I
40:00
think it's also important to point out too, And as we said this before,
40:02
what's important and what's unique and interesting about our brains is that they are
40:07
uniquely human because of our evolutionary line. Right, Like they are not reptilian,
40:12
they are uniquely human based on how we as a species have developed over
40:16
the millennia and the millions of years that we have evolved, right, Like
40:21
our brains are uniquely ours based on our evolutionary line we were talking about.
40:24
We've been unpacking the science here. We've been trying to show like the studies
40:29
have more or less debunked this idea of their being a reptilian brain. And
40:34
we've talked about this evolutionary line and others, and you had mentioned that we
40:38
weren't as confident about this until two years ago. And yeah, there was
40:44
an important study published in twenty twenty two in the journal Science. So I
40:49
think if we wanted to try and study this and make some really clear determination
40:53
about the relative section of the brain that could be considered reptilian, one thing
41:00
that we might look at is look at where similar neurons are concentrated in areas
41:05
of the brain between reptiles and mammals. And so in this twenty twenty two
41:08
study, they compared the brains of lizards and mice to see did they have
41:15
relatively similar concentrations of similar neurons in their brain. That would be what the
41:21
triune hypothesis would suggest, is that those should be concentrated in similar places in
41:27
the brain, right, And instead, what they found is that they were
41:29
scattered all over. There was really no they actually say directly, there was
41:34
no clear reptilian portion of the mammalian brain. Again, the idea there doesn't
41:38
even really make a lot of sense, but they were also trying to prove
41:42
it. So the hypothesis that that would be the case was further disproved by
41:46
more empirical, objective evidence. We just don't have reptile brains. We just
41:52
don't. Like the evidence is very clear. Well that's the conclusion. Yeah,
41:57
exactly. Evolutionarily, it wouldn't make sense, and there's no evidence to
42:00
show that that would have been the case. Neurologically it doesn't seem to be
42:05
the case, and behaviorally it doesn't seem to matter. But it also doesn't
42:08
seem to be the case. So there's no way to build a foundation of
42:15
support for this idea at all. Right, And so then you have to
42:17
ask the question of like why do we keep talking about it? Like why
42:21
do certain concepts in side of psychology continue to persist well after they've been debunked,
42:28
Right, and we've kind of had the conversation about like a lie or
42:30
like a you know, an idea can carry on when like a you know,
42:34
scientists try to disseminate this, and we'll talk about that in a second,
42:37
But really I think the first thing is the reptilian brain continues on because
42:42
it's very easy to blame my impulsive behavior on that. Oh I didn't have
42:45
you know, I didn't have the impulse controlled, you know, so I
42:49
bought every record like that's got to be my reptilian brain getting emotional and getting
42:52
impulsive and doing those things. Right. So, like I think for some
42:55
people it's very easy to have like a quote unquote cause for certain types of
43:00
behaviors, and it's very easy to go back to being like, oh,
43:02
that's my lizard brain getting in a way, you know, like that's why
43:05
I do things that I can't explain. Second, and in my mind,
43:09
very importantly, is this idea of lizard brain has got just the best pry.
43:16
I mean, this is a snazzy easy name. I mean, what
43:21
could be easier to understand you? But you don't even really need to know
43:23
the actual idea suggested here to get the metaphor of what someone might say when
43:30
they say my lizard brain and like complex webs of neural networks or and evolutionary
43:37
lines or that my brain was a lizard brain one time, but I got
43:40
better, but I got better the monty python things. Betta. Yeah,
43:47
that's exactly what that was. Yeah, that's it, Like it's easy to
43:52
glom onto right, Like it's you go, oh, lizard brain. I
43:55
understand the idea simple brain, Like, so when I do simple, explainable
44:00
things, it's my simple brain getting in the way, right, Yes,
44:02
exactly. Yeah, that like there's this, as I keep saying, this
44:07
vestigial, tiny part of me that still has the wheel sometimes. Yeah,
44:12
but for some reason, lizard brain has not been used as like a defensible
44:15
thing in court yet. So, uh well, maybe one day we'll get
44:17
there. I don't think it will though, especially with this new studies,
44:21
like so these new studies that kind of debunk it. Yeah, And I
44:23
think the most important thing that we keep coming back to, and it's actually
44:27
like a core value of the show, is that generally science communication is bad.
44:31
So we want to do a better job of communicating science in a really
44:35
meaningful and positive way because people just don't understand science stuff, and especially when
44:40
there's like easy names and easy concepts that come up that like make sense even
44:45
logically on some level, like but when the minute you put any thought into
44:49
it doesn't it falls apart. Right, But the idea that like there's a
44:52
part of my brain that is simple and primitive that explains my impulsive behavior,
44:57
Like that feels good for people when we can we try to explain the science
45:01
around it. We don't communicate that well. I mean, all you got
45:04
to do is read Paul Off. It's bad advice to know exactly how bad
45:07
science communication is. Yeah, because he does a great example of explaining why
45:10
it's so difficult as a science to explain concepts like neural networks and how your
45:15
brain. We use one hundred percent of our brains, we just don't use
45:20
it all at the same time every single time. Yeah, that's a seizure.
45:22
Yeah, that's that's bad. That's really shouldn't use all of it at
45:25
the same time. But the point is is like when you have something like
45:29
lizard brain, that's an easy concept for people to understand. It's got a
45:31
cool name, and the other concepts related to this are really complex to explain.
45:37
Like we are always going to fail a scientist unless we do a better
45:39
job of disseminating and finding better ways to get information out in a meaningful way.
45:44
Yeah, And I think inherently there's sort of an issue here where simple,
45:50
poorly thought out ideas can have simple, poorly thought out slogans. And
45:55
simple slogans are easy to remember, they're catchy, they're fun. They often
46:00
and make us chuckle, and that stands out in our memory because it's entertaining.
46:04
But complex ideas or complex ideas, it's hard to sum up the nuance
46:08
of those ideas with like a quick heuristic. Sometimes they do a really good
46:13
idea, So like the reason that they call people maybe haven't heard this,
46:17
So again, science communication not as good of a job as I'm giving it
46:22
credit for right now, But like they've they've tried to describe that. There's
46:24
the speed of light is like a speed limit for our universe, Like you
46:29
can't go faster than that, right, And the reason it has to do
46:31
with the Doppler effect. It basically has to do with if a source of
46:36
light is moving through space, does that mean that the light that it emits,
46:42
Like let's say a star is flying through space, is the light that
46:45
it's emitting in front of it then going faster than light from a source that
46:49
was let's say static, right, Right, you'd presume that the light would
46:52
be moving at a different speed, but it's it seems to be the case
46:55
where it doesn't change speed even as the source moves, and that we would
47:00
know that from the Doppler shift, meaning which way the light the waves are
47:05
compressed or stretched, and just calling it a speed limit, that's pretty that's
47:08
pretty easy. I think you can understand, like speed limit on the light.
47:12
Yeah, Like I think people get that. Why it seems to happen
47:15
or what that actually means unclear, but they can understand that it's a speed
47:20
limit. And this is not at all to belittle the general intelligence of people,
47:23
although we could probably try and make that case too if we wanted to,
47:27
but I prefer to err on the side of optimism. And also,
47:30
like, everybody is got their own stuff going on all the time, and
47:36
so I think it's generally considering that the idea that people are stupid is a
47:42
lack of critical thinking, right, people are not generally stupid anyway, point
47:46
being that, like they just they will not have read or talked about that
47:50
specific concept for a while. So anyway, where I was going with all
47:53
of this, this huge tirade ramble of mind was that maybe we could on
47:59
this show right now try to rebrand the human brain as instead of the lizard
48:05
brain with something catchy. And I don't have anything off the top of my
48:08
mind, but I was sort of toying around with the idea of just calling
48:13
it uniquely human or like the simply orange drink, you know, beverages,
48:17
We'll just call it simply human. Yeah, sim that so much. Yeah,
48:22
so we are We do not have lizard brains. We are simply human.
48:25
And that's really truly what it comes down to is our brains are so
48:30
so unique because of how it's evolved. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
48:35
an impressive We we have impressive brains. But you know, all creatures evolve
48:38
the way that they evolved and are like our trait that just happens to take
48:44
a lot of dominance was how our brains evolved and with it it co evolved
48:47
with other things about our biology. But that's just a thing. So anyway,
48:52
Yeah, we got brains, we got thumbs, We are the coolest.
49:00
This has kind of been a year for celebrating our the unique evolutionary history
49:05
of humans, hasn't it been. It's been so fun. I love it
49:07
so much. All right, great, do you have anything else on lizard
49:12
brains, because I kind of we blew past an ad break. No,
49:15
I got nothing else. I mean, it just comes down to the fact,
49:16
like my only take on point is that we don't have lizard brains.
49:20
We have mammal brains, and our brains are very complex, but we have
49:23
debunked lizard brains pretty thoroughly at this point in time. Yes, evolutionarily,
49:29
neurologically, biologically, behaviorally, it doesn't make sense. We don't have lizard
49:34
brains. We are simply human, simply human brains, simply human. Yep,
49:37
fresh squeeze. Alright, let's play some ads for simply juice. I
49:50
was gonna say, make some recommendations, but we've got other things to do
49:52
first, which is to give credit where credit is due, which is to
49:57
say that if you would like to support the show, if you liked our
50:00
weird, rambly jokey style of trying to explain these topics and debunk myths and
50:07
that sort of thing, then we love you for loving it, and we
50:10
can all love each other together. By Jesus, I'm doing so bad at
50:14
euphemisms today. We can all be friends if you come over to Patreon.
50:21
Oh no, and when you do that you can add free content, early
50:23
episodes, all kinds of good stuff. And plus it helps support the show.
50:27
We have a discord, you can talk to other people about it,
50:29
that sort of thing, and we appreciate all of you. And also if
50:32
you do that, I will read your name. So thank you to the
50:35
following people who have helped continue to make this show possible, which is Mike,
50:38
m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad,
50:42
Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Michelle. Thank you
50:45
all very much. Yeah, y'all are the best, the best forever.
50:50
Of course, thank you to everyone who is listening to us today. We
50:53
like having an audience for our show. It's kind of important to having a
50:57
show. But I need my team of people to make help to help make
51:00
this show happen. I can say things in the right order sometimes writing and
51:04
fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank you Shane for you're putting these together,
51:09
these notes today. Yeah, no, this is a blast. I'm
51:12
uh. I hope you liked it. Yeah, this sounds good because someone
51:15
who is very good at making things sound good is Justin. He does all
51:19
of our audio engineering and producing, and then our social media coordinator is Emma
51:24
Wilson. All right, Shane, is there anything else that I forgot or
51:28
that you would like to add before we recommend things? I have got nothing
51:31
else For those of you joining in us for the first time. At the
51:36
end of every discussion, we like to just have a total, non sequit
51:39
or quick recommend of some things, just you know things. It could be
51:44
anything. Sometimes it's go do this thing, or go buy this thing,
51:46
or go watch this thing, or go listen to this thing. Whatever you
51:50
can do it or not, it's up to you. We're just gonna recommend
51:52
it because we thought it was cool. So let's recommend some things recommendations.
52:05
This weekend, I watched a movie called Dope. So the tagline for this
52:08
movie is it's hard out here for a geek. So this movie is about
52:14
the main character is a young black man living in in an area of Inglewood
52:17
called the Bottoms, and he is obsessed with nineties culture, like nineties hip
52:22
hop culture. So he's got like a flat top, he whears like like
52:27
nineties clothes. But he is living in like modern and modern LA and he's
52:31
kind of bullied because he's kind of a nerd, and he gets himself into
52:35
some trouble, like he plays in a punk band. He's like talking about
52:37
kind of getting out of this area to go to Harvard and gets caught up
52:42
in some drug stuff and stuff like that. Very like it's got like a
52:45
little bit of a storytelling vibe, like kind of like boys in the hood
52:49
growing up and stuff like that, like those types of Friday a little bit.
52:52
It's got some humor in it. It's really really great and the cast
52:55
is fantastic. So the main character, Malcolm is Schimik More if you're not
53:00
familiar with should make more. He does the voice of Miles Morales and the
53:04
animated Spider Man movies. You've got Tony Revel Laurie, who is Flash Thompson
53:10
in the live action Spider Man mcn movies. You've got ASoP Rocky is in
53:15
it. You've got Laurence Fishburne is the narrator. Just a lot of really
53:19
great people in this movie. Zoe Kravitz is in it. It's done well,
53:22
it's really fun, it's shot beautifully and has a really great twist in
53:27
it that doesn't exist in like some of the nineties movies that kind of centered
53:30
around the same types of topics. Okay, I loved it. I thought
53:34
it was a blast, and it was it was something I strongly recommend.
53:37
I mean, I know I'm late to the game. I'm ten years late
53:38
to the game. But it is a great, great movie. All right,
53:43
sounds dope. Yeah, you did it. You did the thing.
53:46
And the director too, directed a couple episodes of The Mandalorian as well,
53:50
so like, so there's some cool little like tie into stuff, like like
53:54
nerd culture in there as well, so kind of nice. Yeah, that's
53:58
like a ton of crossovers going on. Yeah, there's a lot happening here
54:02
for sure. All right, So dope is the movie? Yes, all
54:06
right, I am recommending something with some caveats. So I'm recommending something called
54:10
datech codings. Dates is spelled daich. I had lamented on the show before
54:17
that we were redoing our countertops. We did it DIY style. And here's
54:22
the thing about this. I'm going to say a number right now that is
54:24
wrong. It's probably wrong on off buy a lot. But let's say you
54:28
wanted to redo your kitchen and get new countertops. I'm going to estimate that
54:31
that's going that they're going to quote you something like two hundred thousand dollars,
54:35
may as well buy a new house. Yeah, sure that number is wrong.
54:37
The thing is it is going to cost you an absurd amount of money,
54:42
like definitely enough to buy a new car, maybe two new cars amounts
54:45
of money, but like an absurd amount of money to do something like just
54:49
getting your counters redone. If instead you are a fan of not spending huge
54:54
sums of money in that way, you can do it yourself. We use
54:58
this stuff and does you kind of painted on as a way of thinking about
55:01
it, but you're like applying a coding to it and that will form some
55:06
type of countertop. And so the one that we got looks like quartz,
55:08
but they have others that are available, and you just order a kit that
55:13
you has a certain amount of square footage that it will cover. So you
55:15
just get as much as you need to cover the surface that you are applying
55:19
this to, and you can redo your own countertops. And I will say
55:22
that relative to like probably sourcing the raw materials, cutting and polishing a new
55:28
counters and having them installed, it is easier. But I'm not sure I
55:31
would call it easy. It's not easy like opening a can of soda easy.
55:37
It's not easy even like building a shed easy. Actually it's probably sure
55:45
similar to that, but it's not easy. But it's also like it's it's
55:51
not as hard as something like this definitely could be, whereas someone who has
55:54
no skills with construction whatsoever would look at their counters and say, there's no
55:59
way I'm going to be able to do this myself. With the stage coating,
56:01
you can. They have something called lux rock and it's a few hundred
56:05
dollars, so it's really a fraction of a percent of the price that you
56:09
would pay to have it done otherwise. So it is not for the faint
56:14
of heart. I recommend if you're gonna do it, like you give yourself
56:17
probably a week off of work to deal with it, or at least don't
56:22
have any plans for a week, sure, and really dedicate your time to
56:28
it. And because it takes depending on how much surface you're doing, it
56:32
takes a while. Mostly it's because you have to have like a twenty four
56:37
hour drying period for some of the coats, sure, and so it's like
56:39
you do a coat and that's like you just can't use your kitchen for a
56:44
day before you do the next thing, and then you can't use your kitchen
56:46
for another day, right, right, So if you can, if you
56:51
can stand and not have your kitchen for a couple of days and like eat
56:54
out for every meal, you technically could get it done and probably three and
57:00
a half days if you're like really on top of it. But it's just
57:04
steps, like it takes a while to apply it, to clean it,
57:06
to sand it, to prep it, all of that, so like there
57:08
are there are things. So anyway, that was a really really really long
57:13
description of this long story. Short too long, don't read way too late
57:15
for all of that. It is a DIY way of doing your own countertops,
57:20
and the final product is incredibly good, Like it is really looks remarkably
57:27
authentic and genuine, and regardless of whether it is actual real courts or whatever,
57:32
it gets the job done and looks nice. So who cares? That's
57:36
all that matters. Yeah, all right, Well that's way more than I
57:38
needed to talk about this particular product. But if you would like to tell
57:44
us about your lizard brain or your lack thereof, or anything about countertops or
57:47
dope, feel free to reach out to us. You can email us directly
57:52
at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. As I said, you can also join
57:57
us on the social media things and Patreon. And I think that's all that
58:00
I have, So anything else before we let everyone go? Shane, I
58:05
got nothing else, all right, Thanks for listening. This is Abraham and
58:07
this is Shane. We're out. So yeah, you've been listening to Why
58:12
We Do what We Do. You can learn more about this and other episodes
58:15
by going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we hope
58:22
you have an awesome day