How to Use Curiosity & Focus to Create a Joyful & Meaningful Life | Dr. Bernardo Huberman

1. 0:00 – 2:13

   Dr. Bernardo Huberman

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. (instrumental music plays) I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Bernardo Huberman. Dr. Bernardo Huberman is the vice president of next-gen systems at CableLabs. Prior to that, he was the director of the Social Computing Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard. And he is, as his name suggests, my father. Today we discuss various topics in science including relativity theory, chaos theory, and quantum computing. But I'd like to assure you that even if you have zero background in physics, computer science or mathematics, that entire discussion will be clear to you as to what those things are and even some of how they work. During today's discussion we also talk about a life of science, that is, what it is to spend one's life in curiosity, in trying to understand the universe around us and how to understand ourselves. Indeed today we also talk about neuroscience, how the brain works, and the different sorts of questions that I do believe everybody asks, whether you're a scientist or not. Questions like: Where do we come from? Is there a God? What is our use or purpose in the universe? And how is it that we can ponder these super high-level abstract questions about how we got here and what our purpose is and how things work at the quantum level, tiny, tiny bits of things that we can't even see, and at the same time to lead an everyday life that is meaningful and joyful? We talk about this in the context of understanding oneself, in relation to others, family, community, including scientific community and what it is like to come from a different country, my father immigrated from South America, what it was like to do science in the United States then and now, cultural differences, and of course we touch on some of our relationship as well. How could we not? I must say for me it was an immense pleasure and privilege to have this conversation, not just because Dr. Huberman is my father, but because I believe the knowledge and indeed some of the wisdom that he shares will be useful to everybody about what it is to carve one's own unique trajectory in terms of career and life, and at the same time how to savor the simple everyday things that make life so worth living.

2. 2:13 – 5:08

   Sponsors: Helix Sleep & BetterHelp

   1. AHAndrew Huberman2:13

      Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are customized to your unique sleep needs. Now I've spoken many times before on this and other podcasts about the fact that getting a great night's sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. Now the mattress you sleep on makes a huge difference in the quality of sleep that you get each night. How soft that mattress is or how firm it is, how breathable it is all play into your comfort and need to be tailored to your unique sleep needs. So if you go to the Helix website, you can take a brief two-minute quiz that asks you questions such as: Do you sleep on your back, your side, or your stomach? Do you tend to run hot or cold during the night? Things of that sort. Maybe you know the answers to those questions, maybe you don't. Either way, Helix will match you to the ideal mattress for you. For me, that turned out to be the Dusk mattress, D-U-S-K. I started sleeping on a Dusk mattress about three and a half years ago and it's been far and away the best sleep that I've ever had, so much so that when I travel to hotels and Airbnbs I find I don't sleep as well. I can't wait to get back to my Dusk mattress. So if you'd like to try Helix, you can go to helixsleep.com/huberman. Take that two-minute sleep quiz, and Helix will match you to a mattress that's customized for your unique sleep needs. Right now Helix is giving up to 25% off all mattress orders. Again, that's helixsleep.com/huberman to get up to 25% off. Today's episode is also brought to us by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. Now I've been doing weekly therapy for well over 30 years. Initially I didn't have a choice; it was a condition of being allowed to stay in high school. But pretty soon I realized that therapy is an extremely important component to overall health. In fact, I consider doing regular therapy just as important as getting regular exercise. Now there are essentially three things that great therapy provides. First, it provides a good rapport with somebody that you can really trust and talk to about any and all issues that concern you. Second of all, great therapy provides support in the form of emotional support, but also directed guidance, the dos and the not-to-dos. And third, expert therapy can help you arrive at useful insights that you would not have arrived at otherwise, insights that allow you to do better, not just in your emotional life and your relationship life, but also the relationship to yourself and your professional life and all sorts of career goals. With BetterHelp they make it very easy to find an expert therapist with whom you can really resonate with and provide you with these three benefits that I described. Also because BetterHelp is carried out entirely online, it's very time efficient and easy to fit into a busy schedule. So, if you'd like to try BetterHelp, go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. And now for my discussion with Dr. Bernardo Huberman.

3. 5:08 – 12:29

   Early School, Science Interest, Argentina; Soccer

   1. AHAndrew Huberman5:08

      Dr. Bernardo Huberman, welcome.

   2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:11

      Thank you, Andrew.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman5:12

      And also great to see you, Dad.

   4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:14

      Same here.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman5:15

      I guess no premonition would have foreseen this one.

   6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:18

      No.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman5:18

      (laughs)

   8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:18

      Absolutely not.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman5:21

      And uh, people might notice today I'm drinking out of a mate gourd. Uh, in part in honor of, uh, my father's father who drank out of his loose leaf mate every morning, and my first sip of mate was taken on a, sitting in his lap when I was maybe four years old.

   10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:35

       Yes, yes.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman5:36

       In my Spider-Man pajamas. In any event, let's talk about science. You're born in Argentina.

   12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:44

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman5:45

       As I recall, because once we had a conversation about it, you had a teacher, maybe it was in high school, who turned you on to physics which became your field of choice.

   14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman5:56

       Yes, yes.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman5:56

       But prior to that...... were you interested in different subjects? I, I don't recall if you had an avid interest in academics or you just did it because you were supposed to, prior to that teacher. Then we'll talk about him.

   16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman6:08

       Yes, yes. I, I was always very interested in ideas and so on, and I... Science at that time was a bit vague, but I, I read a lot of philosophy. I was... I didn't understand much of what I read, but nevertheless I kept reading it. I was interested in psychology. Um, I was an avid reader. As a matter of fact, I embarrassed my father, or actually made him disappointed when for a birthday, I think I was 14 years old, I asked him to buy me the 12 volumes of Freud's writings.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman6:36

       Really?

   18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman6:36

       And... Yeah, and he said, "What for?" So, uh... But I was very impressed with it. I've... Of course, I couldn't even understand half of what th- these books had in it, uh, in them. So, I was very interested in, in many things. And I must say to you that, uh, my interest in science, in particular physics, doesn't come from the standard thing that you see here in the United States mostly. Namely, I was not a whiz kid in math. Um, you know, I was not one of these people that can really do things very, very quickly and so on. But I was interested because I thought that physics was g- was gonna complement my, uh, attempt at understanding how the whole universe is put together. The philosophers were saying all sorts of things. I went to a very special school, uh, that I learned six years of Latin and so on, and I had to read things like Kant and, and, um, Cosmogonos and cosmogonies and so on that really didn't mean much to me. But suddenly, I started discovering that physics might be interesting, and I had a cousin, Hector, who was a physicist, a particle physicist already. I mean, he was living at that time in France. And so there was a little bit of that influence. But my, my interest was, uh, in, in things that had to do with fairly abstract ideas. Uh, I cannot believe that at one point or the other I was very good in, um, in geometry class, being able to prove theorems. I mean, the, the teacher would just say, "Let's prove this," and I was somehow able to reason through and come to, you know, some proofs. Um, so I, I think that I, I was very interested in ideas and, and not necessarily in the very concrete aspects of science at that time.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman8:06

       Can I ask you a question about early schooling?

   20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:07

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman8:08

       So, if I remember correctly, you were born naturally left-handed.

   22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:13

       Yes.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman8:13

       They forced you to learn wr-

   24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:15

       Correct.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman8:15

       ... to write with your right hand.

   26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:17

       Yes, yes.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman8:17

       You went to a very strict schools.

   28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:19

       Yes, yes.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman8:19

       Like, like military levels of strictness.

   30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman8:22

       Almost, yes, yes.
4. 12:29 – 20:48

   Physics, Childhood Teacher, Family

   1. AHAndrew Huberman12:29

      So, your father was not a scientist.

   2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman12:30

      No.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman12:30

      Your brother is not a scientist. Um, and you were fated, according to them, to join the family business. But then you had a teacher who exposed you to physics.

   4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman12:41

      To physics and to the notion of being authentic in what you want. There were two parts to it. He was a very interesting and tormented man, I felt. Uh, but he was very interesting. He would come into the class, most of the students, you know, really didn't care about what he was saying. And so, I was fascinated, not only by what he was saying but his whole personality. But I need to say something here that is important. Uh, I also was rather irresponsible. You see, I, I grew up in a, in a family, a well-to-do family, but I never thought how I was going to make a living. So it was easy to be interested in science or anything because, you know, it's, it's what you do. Uh, it's, you're, you're, you know, you're interested in culture, you read books, uh, you do things. But my father used to say, "What are you gonna do once you graduate? You don't wanna start teaching in elementary schools or something of that sort." My brother used to say, "If he does physics, I'll have to support him," because (laughs) yeah, he still says that.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman13:33

      So scientists were considered poor?

   6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman13:35

      Poor, yeah, yeah. They couldn't get a job. I mean, science in Argentina... Argentina has a big tradition in medical sciences, I think two or three Nobel Prizes and so on. But in physics, they produce some very good physicists. One of them lives in the United States. I mean, he's very, very famous, Maldacena. And I haven't met him, but I know that he's one of the top people in the, in the field. But I, I just got into this because I was interested, it sound- sounded, you know, uh, fascinating and abstract and the ideas were so powerful. And I think, and, uh, you know, I reflected a lot on this, when you're psychologically ado- an adolescent, because my parents made me jump two grades, so I was much younger than my classmates, and that created a lot of problems for me. I mean, at a time when, you know, you're developing and so on, all the boys were talking about girls and so on. I still (laughs) was really into understanding why the excitement and so on, you know, I was very young. But, um, it gave me a sense of order. You know, reading a book about physics and understanding that there are laws that tell you how things work gave me a tremendous sense of order and power. So, uh, you know, everything else was a little bit in flow, and then the family and my own relationships with friends and girlfriends or whatever. And going back to science, it was just this sense of... and I still remember those days. It was very, very, um, soothing in a way.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman14:52

      So it's like a touchstone?

   8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman14:54

      Yes, yes, yes.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman14:54

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman14:55

       And I used to play-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman14:55

       And at what grade were you expo-... uh, this teacher was-

   12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman14:58

       Yes.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman14:58

       Was this, like, middle school, high school?

   14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman15:00

       Yeah, no, yeah. High school, yeah. I was, uh, 13 or 14 years old, yeah, yeah, when I finally... I started listening to this and I said, "Wow, this is impressive." Um, you know, "It's powerful." Uh, there, there is, there are ways to know what's true and what's not true, you know? There are, you know, you, you just don't speculate on things. Um, so, but most of the stuff I didn't really understand. Uh, then I had this cousin of mine, Hector, who was already gone, but I would go to his parents' house and there were his books, all these incredible books on quantum mechanics, relativity. And I would just take them home, and I didn't really comprehend a lot of the math, but somehow it seemed impressive. Uh, it was like looking into a mechanism or something. Uh, so, and I used to take them to school and one of my teachers once said, you know, "You seem too interested in this, but you don't understand this, so you need to, you need to learn it." And th- he was the one who started pushing me into this. Um, on the other hand, my family was saying, "You should become a lawyer." Just, you know, my brother and father.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman15:58

       And that never interested you?

   16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman16:00

       No. I- it's interesting because now I'm very interested in aspects of constitutional law and so on when I hear about arguments against, you know, the Supreme Court and so on. I became very interested in law and economics later on, I mean, just to read about it. But what my father was talking about at the dining room table was all about strategies of, you know, getting, uh, something done half an hour before the opposition so you win a case. I mean, I was totally uninterested (laughs) in that.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman16:25

       I'm sensing a bit of a theme, which is that, um, social dynamics and what other people do, regardless of whether or not they like it or it earns them a particular living, um, didn't capture you. Like, the, the idea that people and their, uh, groups and their, their ways of thinking and behaving, while th- uh, they may not bother you, it doesn't... it didn't captivate you the way that, like, it sounds like physics e- you know, made you think that there's something kind of bigger, that there's something, um, more universal.

   18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman16:56

       Right.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman16:56

       Which indeed physics is, right?

   20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman16:57

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman16:57

       It's not... (laughs) It is, uh-

   22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman16:58

       Yeah. And I, and I-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman16:59

       It explains most everything.

   24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman17:00

       Yes. And I, I-

   25. AHAndrew Huberman17:01

       Most everything.

   26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman17:02

       Yes. And I also think that I was a bit of a loner. Um, it was very hard to find people that, uh, you know, child- I mean, children or young people that thought like me. So eventually I became p- part of a group. We were four or five guys that used to get together on Saturdays and, you know, go to the movies and so on, and then afterwards discuss, you know, whatever we were interested in and so on. I was, I was only 16 years old, you know, and de- deciding what to do with my life. Of all four of us, we committed. There were... some of them came from incredibly wealthy families, two of them. We committed to really be true to ourselves and pursue what we liked. But I was the only one. The other two ended up running the business of their parents. And one (laughs) of them essentially, I don't know what he did. I, I saw him years later. I...

   27. AHAndrew Huberman17:45

       Money becomes a, a pretty, a bright beacon for a lot of people.

   28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman17:49

       Yes, yes, yes, yes.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman17:50

       Yeah. I'm grateful to you that you never pushed me to go in any particular direction.

   30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman17:55

       Right.
5. 20:48 – 29:09

   Music; Dictatorship; Humanistic Education

   1. AHAndrew Huberman20:48

      about your study, which was just a door down from my childhood bedroom.

   2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman20:53

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman20:53

      I still remember the way that your study smelled.

   4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman20:56

      Interesting.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman20:56

      I can still smell it. I have an incredible sense of memory for certain things.

   6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman21:00

      Mm-hmm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman21:00

      I can still remember. But I remember how your books were aligned, where your stereo was placed, your photos, your photo of Einstein, uh, your photos of me and Laura and Mom. I remember, I remember all of it. Um, and the sofa that was just off, uh, behind it because you're a nap taker, like, uh, which I inherited from you. Um, but I remember that, yeah, you would spend a lot of time in that office and listening to classical music. Do, do you listen to music while you work or did you listen-

   8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman21:28

      All the time. All the time. Yeah. I, classical music for me is, uh, is something I discovered very young, very young. Uh, my parents also loved classical music, my brother too. And it's something that I, I, to me, has a tremendously emotional resonance with the way I, I feel. Sometimes it's background music. Sometimes I really listen very carefully. Um, it's something that I, yes, I've always had in my life and still have it. I mean, it's, uh, it's very, very important to me.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman21:53

      But not many musicians in our family.

   10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman21:55

       No, unfortunately.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman21:57

       (laughs)

   12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman21:57

       Yeah. Although there is a very famous one.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman21:59

       We've all tried.

   14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:00

       Huh?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman22:00

       We've all tried.

   16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:01

       Yeah, yeah. You in particular.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman22:02

       Yeah.

   18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:03

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman22:03

       And we all failed.

   20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:04

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman22:04

       Yeah.

   22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:05

       There is a very famous, uh, Huberman, the great violinist, Bronislav Huberman. I mean, there's a picture, I think I sent it to you. He and Einstein. He, um, he was one of the greatest violinists in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, an incredibly interesting man. Uh, he's the founder of the Israel Philharmonic. And that's one of the reasons that the name Huberman is in some street, uh, in, in Israel that because of him, but I'm-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman22:27

       Are we related to him?

   24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:28

       Unfortunately not. (laughs)

   25. AHAndrew Huberman22:29

       (laughs)

   26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:29

       (laughs)

   27. AHAndrew Huberman22:30

       Which explains-

   28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:31

       I would like-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman22:31

       ... the lack of musical prowess in our-

   30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman22:33

       Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
6. 29:09 – 30:40

   Sponsor: AG1

   1. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman29:09

   2. AHAndrew Huberman29:09

      I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also includes prebiotics and adaptogens. AG1 is designed to cover all of your foundational nutritional needs and it tastes great. Now, I've been drinking AG1 since 2012 and I started doing that at a time when my budget for supplements was really limited. In fact, I only had enough money back then to purchase one supplement and I'm so glad that I made that supplement AG1. The reason for that is even though I strive to eat most of my foods from Whole Foods and minimally processed foods, it's very difficult for me to get enough fruits, vegetables, vitamins and minerals, micronutrients and adaptogens from food alone and I need to do that in order to ensure that I have enough energy throughout the day, I sleep well at night, and keep my immune system strong. But when I take AG1 daily, I find that all aspects of my health, my physical health, my mental health and my performance, both cognitive and physical, are better. I know that because I've had lapses when I didn't take AG1 and I certainly felt the difference. I also notice, and this makes perfect sense given the relationship between the gut microbiome and the brain, that when I regularly take AG1, which for me means a serving in the morning or mid-morning and again later in the afternoon or evening, that I have more mental clarity and more mental energy. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now, they're giving away five free travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman to claim that special offer.

7. 30:40 – 39:27

   US Graduate School

   1. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman30:40

      When I came to the United States, I must tell you, uh, I went to, uh, I came as a graduate student in University of Pennsyl-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman30:45

      Yeah. Let's, let's talk about that.

   3. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman30:46

      Yeah.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman30:46

      So, how did you end up getting into the United States as a graduate student?

   5. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman30:50

      Okay.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman30:50

      You applied?

   7. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman30:51

      Yeah. I, I was f- graduating, and, uh, you know, the, the future looked rather gloomy. I, I had a girlfriend whose father was, uh, very wealthy and, and she said, "No problem, you're gonna work for my dad." And, you know, he had a factory or whatever.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman31:04

      Why do I feel like that is not the kind of offer that you'll go for?

   9. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:07

      No, no, not at all.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman31:08

       You-

   11. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:08

       Not at all.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman31:08

       I've never known you to work for anyone except you.

   13. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:12

       Yeah, in a way, you're right.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman31:13

       I'm a bit the same.

   15. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:13

       Yeah, yeah. So, yes, yes.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman31:15

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:15

       I, I, I, just the idea of, you know, running a business was not ... I was, I was truly idealistic and irresponsible too. But I had a cousin who was already, you know, got his PhD in theoretical physics at univ- at Columbia University, was a professor, uh, in France, then Sweden, and so on. So, I, I felt that perhaps I should go to United States. And so I started applying to this, and my father was saying, y- "You know, I won't even help you with this." He didn't like, my parents didn't like it. Uh, you know, I was very close to my family in many ways. And, um, so I, I applied to many places. I remember being accepted at, at, um, I think it was Cornell, and I said, "Oh, New York. That's great." Till someone said to me, "You have to take a plane to go to real New York." You know?

   18. AHAndrew Huberman31:57

       Yeah.

   19. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:57

       I mean, if that's not-

   20. AHAndrew Huberman31:58

       He loved New York City.

   21. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman31:58

       Yeah, if that's not for you...

   22. AHAndrew Huberman32:00

       We both love New York City, right?

   23. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman32:00

       So, in any event, I got it, I got it, this very, very nice, uh, fellowship to go to University of Pennsylvania, which is-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman32:05

       Who was the fellowship from?

   25. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman32:06

       Uh, the Navy, the United States Navy. Yeah. It's, I'm very grateful for that. Um, and I actually wrote that in my Ph- PhD thesis. You know, I was very grateful, and I think it was incredible that they were supporting that kind of research.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman32:18

       They wanted to bring you to the US to build weapons?

   27. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman32:21

       No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. I came to United States working for a Professor Bernstein, who just died at the age of 100 or 101. And, uh, no, but I was supported by the United States Navy. It was a fellowship at University of Pennsylvania. Um, but I remember, uh, in my first interview with some of the teachers, uh, Penn professors, there I am talking to them about the foundations of quantum mechanics, and the guy says to me, "Let me give, let me give you an interesting problem. You have a ping pong ball, but instead of being a classical ping pong ball, it's a quantum one. Could you tell me at what heights will it bounce?" I had no idea what to do. I had no sense that you could turn all this knowledge into something implementable, practical, and so on. So, it was quite a struggle the first year.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman33:01

       So, you had theoretical understanding-

   29. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman33:03

       Yes, yeah.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman33:04

       ... not experimental understanding.
8. 39:27 – 49:19

   Counterculture, Peer Pressure; Graduation, Job Search

   1. AHAndrew Huberman39:27

      during that time, uh, I did wanna ask about this. I asked about it being the, the mid to late '60s because, um, that was the counterculture movement.

   2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:34

      Yes, yeah. Right, right.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman39:35

      And, um, one thing that people should know about you, I'll just offer this up, is that in the entire time I've known you, which is a while now, um, you've been very clear, like you never had any interest in recreational drugs.

   4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:50

      No.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman39:50

      Never did them.

   6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:51

      No.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman39:51

      Even though that was super common then.

   8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:53

      Yes.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman39:53

      I've never seen you have more than a glass of wine.

   10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:56

       Yes.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman39:57

       You've never been drunk in your life.

   12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman39:58

       Never.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman39:59

       And you don't like football despite being from Argentina. It's, I, it occurred to me on the drive over, like, like peer pressure is just not something that impacts you. You're not gonna do something because people around you are doing it.

   14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman40:13

       Well, no, you're absolutely right.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman40:14

       Yeah.

   16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman40:14

       I, I always felt this, uh, sense of, uh, uniqueness or whatever and, but I became very humble because of it. I'm not arrogant. It's not that I feel-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman40:22

       No, I-

   18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman40:22

       ... that others, others are worse and so on. But yes, when I came to the United States, uh, there was something, uh, there was a decision I had to make, which is I remember explicitly thinking about it. It was the first time that I was beyond the control of my parents and family and the so- social environment in which I was in Argentina. So, you could do whatever you wanted. And I was not the only one who came. There were three or four brilliant, uh, mathematicians and physicists that came with me. And I saw them within a year just losing it all. They never gra- one of them never graduated. They got into drugs. They got... They moved to the Village in New York and they, they decided that that was the life they wanted to have. Problem is that, uh, you know, 10 years on, you know, what, what are you doing, right? I mean, you know, uh, being a, an o- getting to be an old hippie is not that interesting. Um, so I, I really had that notion at that time that I needed to be very disciplined and I had to internalize a set of values and to ask myself what I want and what I don't want. And so yes, indeed, I used to go to parties, to me, it was quite a surprise, uh, uh, you know, in New York, Philadelphia, you know, people smoking pot and all sorts of others incredible things, getting drunk and so on. Uh, it was something that I, you know, I would say, "No, thank you," and that was it, and I felt quite okay with it. Uh, and they... and I never felt the need to satisfy a group of people that were like this in order to be included.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman41:41

       You know, there's only one person that I've ever met in my entire life, now that I'm 49 I can say things like now that I'm 49, who has never been drunk, never done drugs, um, basically has never really had a sip of alcohol except for once and that's Rick Rubin.

   20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman41:55

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman41:55

       My good friend who's-

   22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman41:56

       I like the meaning. (laughs)

   23. AHAndrew Huberman41:57

       Yeah, by all standards is, you know, probably the greatest music producer of all time across, you know, dozen, a dozen different genres.

   24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman42:05

       Yes.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman42:05

       Right? Not just rock and roll-

   26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman42:06

       Right.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman42:06

       ... but classical, country, all this. And I once asked Rick, um, you know, "You, you worked in music where, you know, drugs and alcohol are, are everywhere-"

   28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman42:15

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman42:15

       "... or at least used to be." And he just said, "Yeah, it, it never really interested me. I could be around it but not participate."

   30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman42:21

       Yeah.
9. 49:19 – 54:49

   Xerox, Personal Computers; Risk-Takers, Tachyon

   1. AHAndrew Huberman49:19

      um, uh-... experimental lab.

   2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:21

      Yeah.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman49:22

      You, um, you told me to pick a piece of fruit, there was a bowl of fruit. I picked a banana. You took out the banana, you peeled it, and you dipped it into liquid nitrogen.

   4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:31

      And throw.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman49:31

      And then you told me to throw it on the ground, and we shattered the banana.

   6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:34

      (laughs) Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman49:34

      And I thought that was, like, the coolest thing ever.

   8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:36

      Yeah, right.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman49:36

      I remember that. So that was happening. But the, um, you mentioned the stuff that was happening about developing computer interfaces, and, um, that indeed Jobs borrowed or stole, um, mostly because PARC didn't protect the intellectual property well.

   10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:51

       Well, PARC did-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman49:51

       I mean, they didn't do it illegally. I mean, he saw it-

   12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:53

       No, no, no.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman49:53

       They, they basically gave it away.

   14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:55

       Right, right.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman49:55

       They basically gave it away, right?

   16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:56

       Xerox was thinking-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman49:57

       Yeah.

   18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman49:57

       ... that, you know, copiers were the future. That's it. Uh-

   19. AHAndrew Huberman50:00

       But I also recall 'cause I overheard the conversations between you and Mom when I was a kid perhaps, um, that there were... It was pretty wild at PARC. Like, there was this whole, like, the room with the beanbags. People were taking LSD and other drugs.

   20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:14

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman50:14

       That wasn't your scene though.

   22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:15

       No, no, no.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman50:15

       Okay.

   24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:15

       Not at all.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman50:16

       Okay.

   26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:16

       I was in the physics lab, and we can talk later a little bit about it. Okay. Gene Boyce was a very, very interesting collaborator of mine and so on. We had a lot of fun, but not, not on that level. As a matter of fact, we were considered very square people-

   27. AHAndrew Huberman50:27

       Mm-hmm.

   28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:27

       ... uh, you know, doing what we were doing. I mean, the- this is a group of people that were truly the... I mean, books have been written on, on this c- whole class of people that became really the embryo of what Silicon Valley became. Uh, they were brilliant people trying to do new things, Adele, the, uh, Alan Kay. There were many of them, but they-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman50:44

       Did you ever want to get involved in that stuff?

   30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman50:46

       I used to see them as, as so... Uh, yeah, I'll tell you how I got (laughs) involved. The head of the group, Bob Taylor, a very charismatic man who was responsible for the development of the, uh, personal computing, he was the head of the computer science lab. He once heard that I played ping pong, so he started challenging me to ping pong. So we used to play ping pong, you know, and the conversations were so odd because I would say, "Oh, you do computer science. I have some mathematical problems. I would like some guys in your lab to help me." He said, "We are not, we are not the kind of computer scientists you imagine, like at IBM with a white coat, uh, fixing machines and solving math. We want to revolutionize the world. We want to change the way you think." He used to say that to me. And I sort of understood a little bit of it, but quite frankly, it seemed totally out of whatever I was doing.
10. 54:49 – 57:33

    Sponsors: LMNT & ExpressVPN

    1. AHAndrew Huberman54:49

       I'd like to take a quick break and thank one of our sponsors.... LMNT, element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, in the correct ratios but no sugar. We should all know that proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function. In fact, even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance to a considerable degree. It's also important that you're not just hydrated, but that you get adequate amounts of electrolytes in the right ratios. Drinking a packet of LMNT dissolved in water makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate amounts of hydration and electrolytes. To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of both, I dissolve one packet of LMNT in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning. I'll also drink a packet of LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. There are a bunch of different great-tasting flavors of LMNT. I like the watermelon, I like the raspberry, I like the citrus. Basically, I like all of them. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim an LMNT sample pack with the purchase of any LMNT drink mix. Again, that's drink LMNT, spelled L-M-N-T, so it's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. Today's episode is also brought to us by ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is a virtual private network that keeps your data secure and private. It does that by routing your internet activity through their servers and encrypting it so that no one can see or sell your data. Now, I'm familiar with the effects of not securing my data well enough. Several years ago, I had one of my bank accounts hacked, and it was a terrible amount of work to have that reversed and for the account to be secured. When that happened, I talked to my friends in the tech community, and what they told me was that even though you think your internet connection may be secure, oftentimes it's not, especially if you're using Wi-Fi networks such as those on planes, in hotels, at coffee shops, and other public places. Surprisingly, even at home, your data might not be as secure as you think. To make sure that what I described before would never happen to me again, I started using ExpressVPN. The great thing about ExpressVPN is that I don't even notice that it's running since the connection it provides is so fast. I have it on my computer and on my phone, and I keep it on whenever I'm connected to the internet. With ExpressVPN, I know everything is secure, my web browsing, all my passwords, all my data, and of course, anything that's behind an account wall, like a bank account. It can't be tracked, and no one can access or steal your data, which is terrific. If you'd like to start protecting your internet activity using ExpressVPN, you can go to expressvpn.com/huberman, and you can get an extra three months free. Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com/huberman to get an extra three months free.

11. 57:33 – 1:05:53

    Relativity Theory, Quantum Mechanics

    1. AHAndrew Huberman57:33

       Can, can I ask you a question? Uh, it's a s- it's a slight departure, but it's something I've always wanted to ask you, um, and feel free to say no if it's not, um, like, something that could be done in, in a couple of minutes. Um, so many people hear Einstein's name, they think of the hair, they think of relativity. Um, is it possible to explain relativity in a way that, that the everyday person can get it a little bit better than they, they perhaps understand it now?

    2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman58:01

       Yes. I, I think, as a matter of fact, I learned not, uh, not long ago that Einstein himself wrote a popular book on relativity that seems to be very, very accessible. Okay, now, there are two aspects to relativity. I mean, there, there are two, two things that our brains were not made by evolution to understand intuitively. One is relativity, and the other one is quantum physics. We know, we have intuitions, like, you know, an animal, for instance, if you see a, a lion running after a zebra and so on, the lion can actually calculate intuitively, you know, the speed at which he can move and so on. We can do the same. But if you start thinking about what happens when you get to near the speed of light, we have no intuition whatsoever. Time almost stops. There are all sorts of co... complicated things. Lengths contract. I mean, it's this very complicated set of things, and that's why it's very hard to understand, although the math works. Then there is general relativity. That is even worse, because there is some kind of a warping of spacetime that is responsible for gravitation. But I'll go into that in a second. The other one is quantum physics. Our brains are not... not only are they not, eh, wired to understand the near the speed of light, because no one moves near the speed of light. I mean, we, we move at, at speeds that are fairly, fairly small, uh, compared to the speed of light, and quantum mechanics is at such a microscopic level that is below basically the level of a molecule. It's molecules, atoms, and inside the atom. So, it's very, very hard to visualize or even understand some of the very counterintuitive ideas like entanglement and also, you know. So, relativity can be understood in the sense that you can explain certain things, but people say, "Well, how can quantum mechanics work like that?" And then you have to get into the math. Okay? But the... I think that... I, I took a course, uh, a few years ago in general relativity, and, uh, I, I, I just-

    3. AHAndrew Huberman59:47

       Just for fun?

    4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman59:48

       Yeah, yeah. I, I, I wanted to learn finally. It's profound, deep, and it, it makes you feel that this, this man, uh, Einstein, he had help from a lot of people, but still, it's, it's an incredible thing. I mean, you know, it, it's, it's on a level of Beethoven's, uh, symphonies and, and Mozart's piano concertos. I mean, it, it's something that comes into your head and you're able to do, you know, through a lot of struggle. I mean, it took me year... it took him years to do that. Okay? So, but it is profound. Uh, now the que- when you say can you explain, I mean, the, the point is Einstein one day discovered that if the speed of light is the speed of light, no matter how fast you move with respect to a beam of light, you're still moving at the speed of light. That means that the notion of simultaneity between two events is relative now. So, you and I might say, "Yes, now is 1:10," but if you are moving very fast with respect to me, instead of 1:10, you'll say something else, okay? Just because time for you and I are not synchronized. And that leads to all sorts of very interesting effects and practical effects too, because from there comes the idea that mass and energy are the same. From there, we- nuclear weapons came out of that. All sorts of very interesting things, you know? And, uh, today, you know, we can even detect, uh, gravitational waves that are coming from the almost the beginning of the universe. We can detect that because of those theories. They can calculate. So-It, it's profound, yes. I mean, Einstein, I think stands on, on... I mean, Newton too, by the way. I mean, and you know, Newton, Einstein, I think they are top people, you know? But it... They, they talk to God in a way, as they say. (laughs)

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:22

       We'll get back to God, uh, a little bit later. Um, yeah, it seems to me that, um, even though it's very hard to grasp, it's worth asking, uh, for those of us that, that don't have an intuitive sense of, of relativity theory, that is starting to, you know, peer into these things a little bit, trying to understand them, do you think that it gives, um, one's mind an ability to, um, you know, to tap into, like, forms of, of cognition that we don't normally think about when, when we're looking at macro mechanics of, of the world around us? That objects fall down, not up and, you know, a helium balloon goes up, okay? And you can learn something about helium but, but it, it's all, um, it's all pretty straightforward with, with just a few simple bullet points. Uh, whereas when you get into quantum mechanics, it, it, um, yeah, it challenges the mind in a way that it really feels like for most people, there's a cliff and we just kinda go, "Okay." You know?

    6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:02:16

       Yeah.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:16

       And obviously, uh, um, there's trust there but, um, for people that are curious about understanding how the, the really tiny bits of the physical universe link up with the really big bits of the physical universe, um, where's the best place to start?

    8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:02:30

       Well, okay. You're asking a very, very interesting question, which is for most of us who are trained in physics, we learn how to calculate, we learn how to operate with these things. I, you know, I just got a patent on using quantum mechanics for communication and so on. But it is still the puzzle is why does it work the way it works? So, what I'm saying is you learn an operational way of doing the things operationally. I don't know what happens in your brain because I have ideas that come out of intuitions, not just formulas and equations. And yet, I don't necessarily think I understand deeply why these things are the way they are. They are the way they are, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be like that. Our brains, as I said before, you know, they are essentially, um, conformed to understand the macroscopic world, not high speeds and so on. So, physicists who work in general activity, I don't, can do incredible calculations, can you, tell you what a black hole collapsing into another hole, black hole would do, and, you know, they're using generativity things. And so, they, they can do it. Now, what it does to your brain that allows you to op- operationally work with these equations and solve it and have new ideas, it's something I don't understand.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:40

       Mm-hmm.

    10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:03:41

        Namely, I, I... For instance, the example that I gave about quantum mechanics, that, that's a very simple one because I talk to a lot of people nowadays that work on this, is I can give you two dice, okay? You know, just dice. You can go to, uh, Mars and I stay here. The dice are, let's assume they are quantum mechanically entangled. I throw my dice, I see three, you got three. And we don't communicate. They're entangled because this is faster than the speed of light. I throw again, five, you get five. I do one, you get one. I mean, it's an amazing thing.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:10

        What is the origin of the entanglement?

    12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:04:12

        It's, it's a property of quantum systems that they can get entangled, that's the word, and somehow what happens to your system affects mine, but doesn't affect it in the se- sense of signal. No signal. They're entangled. Now, let me, let me... Now, this becomes, uh, rather, uh-

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:28

        They're not entangled through other bits of the universe?

    14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:04:30

        No, no.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:30

        They're totally independent?

    16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:04:31

        Totally independent, yes. They're entangled in the sense that quantum mechanically, they started like this. Okay, now there are ways... I mean, there are trivial things. There's a famous example of the socks. Okay, so you take a trip and, uh, you, you, you, you took a pair of socks. Let's assume that they are blue socks and so on, and then you open your bag and you, "Oh, I, I forgot one sock. So, this is my blue sock." So, you know that there is a blue sock at home. So, knowing that is a correlation, but it, that's trivial, right? I mean, we can do that with anything. In quantum mechanics, imagine that you look at a sock but the sock is changing colors all the time. So, now your observer is red, the other one is red. I observe it is green, the other one is green. Okay? Randomly.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:09

        So, little bits of the universe are entangled?

    18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:11

        Well, some people and I, uh, a friend of mine who's a Buddhist claims that there is a whole religious or Buddhist way of saying that everything, it was entangled. Yes, originally, all atoms, all electrons, all elementary particles were entangled. Yes, because the universe started very, very tiny and everything was entangled. Okay, so you could imagine that the universe is entangled. So, what happens here affects the other. But it gets... The, the entanglement gets lost when perturbations and noise appears and so on. So, we are not today entangled with... I don't know. I mean, we don't think that we're entangled.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:42

        Some people think that-

    20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:43

        Yes, yes, yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:43

        ... some people are entangled.

    22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:44

        Yes, yes, yes.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:45

        Well, let's gets to, uh, maybe-

    24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:46

        But that's a whole... Yeah, that's-

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:47

        That's a whole thing.

    26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:48

        Yeah.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:48

        That's, uh, that's-

    28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:49

        That's poetry.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:49

        That's poetry. Exactly. Um,

12. 1:05:53 – 1:17:21

    Chaos Theory, Fractals, Butterfly Effect

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:53

       there's another example that brings us to a, a very salient aspect of my childhood, which is, uh, chaos theory.

    2. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:05:59

       Mm. Okay, yes.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:00

       Right. So, um, I'll say it so you don't have to. You're one of the, the, uh, founders of chaos or certain a- uh, aspects of chaos theory. We'll talk about that. But, you know, um, for those of us that grew up in the '80s and '90s, I was born in '75, um, you know, who saw the movie Jurassic Park, you know, there, there's a, a moment in that movie where I think, uh, Jeff Goldblum is explaining, you know, uh, what, what is it? Um, chaos theory, and maybe it was the butterfly flapping its wings-

    4. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:06:28

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:28

       ... in one location and impacting something someplace else.

    6. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:06:31

       Mm-hmm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:31

       For the, the poets in the world, right?

    8. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:06:33

       Yes.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:33

       Um, that, that was a very, um, captivating example because I think the human brain can naturally understand that, you know, things around us, we can have an impact on them, and they can have-

    10. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:06:44

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:44

        ... an impact on us. But that, um, the, the notion that, uh, a small insect, you know, thousands of kilometers away can impact something that's going on, um, more adjacent to us, it, it seems outrageous sci-fi. But, you know, the, the notion that one thing impacts another, impacts another, that's pretty straightforward, right? There's just a, a domino-

    12. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:08

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:08

        ... a, a dominoing of the physical world.Chaos theory is different.

    14. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:12

        Yes.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:13

        Okay, could you explain chaos?

    16. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:15

        Yes.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:16

        And I'll just add one more thing just for context for you to, you know, these are the paints in the palette. Um, around the same time, I remember the book Chaos coming out and, and, um, where there was a lot of e- excitement around chaos and this was coming up. Um, uh, there was also a lot of discussion about fractals.

    18. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:33

        Mm-hmm.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:34

        The idea that when you zoom into things at a very, very small level, you start seeing some regularities. Now we know this about crystal structures, right?

    20. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:40

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:40

        Like you put a drop of water under-

    22. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:41

        Yes.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:41

        ... a high-powered microscope, you're gonna see structure there. It's not random. The angles are, are very-

    24. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:07:46

        Yeah.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:46

        ... consistent, at least around certain nodes, et cetera. So, I think people love this idea that we have repeating, um, you know, r- repeating patterns and numbers in nature, that things at a distance can impact us more closely. Like, this is the kind of stuff that e- not, the non-physics brain can understand.

    26. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:08:04

        Yes.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:04

        And it does enchant, right? We sort of poked at poetry. I love poetry, you love poetry. Um, but I, I think it enchants because they, w- I think humans are naturally interested in how, you know, the, the randomness of life might not be as random as it appears. So, um, what is chaos?

    28. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:08:26

        Okay.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:26

        Where does it exist in our lives? Um, not emotional chaos, but, um, and what is the relationship between fractals and chaos, if any?

    30. BHDr. Bernardo Huberman1:08:35

        Okay, let me say first of all about why chaos is what it is, and it's not quantum. There is quantum stories and, and there's a quantum chaotic thing, field, but I won't go into that. Chaos is a very i- interesting idea, which is it, it flies against our intuitions. Since the times of Newton, we know that if you give me the position and the velocity of an initial particle, I can use Newton's equations of motion to tell you where that particle is gonna be anywhere.

Episode duration: 3:15:59