Joe Rogan Experience #1344 - Joseph LeDoux

1. 0:03 – 1:33

   LeDoux’s path into consciousness and non-conscious behavior

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      Here we go. Joe, thank you. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it, man.

   2. JLJoseph LeDoux0:06

      Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      This is a fascinating subject. I've been really looking forward to talking to you 'cause, uh, the conscious mind and how we, how we evolved our conscious mind, how we have our conscious mind. I mean, that is, uh, one of the more unique things about being a person.

   4. JLJoseph LeDoux0:21

      It is.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      How did it happen?

   6. JLJoseph LeDoux0:23

      Oh. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      (laughs)

   8. JLJoseph LeDoux0:25

      Well, it's only a four-billion-year story, as the subtitle-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:27

      Oh, we have some time. (laughs)

   10. JLJoseph LeDoux0:28

       ... of the book says. (laughs) Good. (laughs) So, shall I tell you how I got-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Sure.

   12. JLJoseph LeDoux0:33

       ... into it and, uh, where, where, how I ended up thinking about that problem? So I'd been working on how the brain detects and responds to danger for most of my scientific career. Uh, a little bit before that, I'd actually studied consciousness in these people who have their brains split apart to control epilepsy, called split-brain patients. So I got interested in consciousness and also in how behaviors that might be produced non-consciously, uh, affect what we know about ourselves. So, uh, we see ourselves doing something, and then we kind of consciously build that into our narrative of what we are. But a lot of what we do, we do non-consciously. And when we interpret it, that kind of, uh, solidifies the fact that you have a non-conscious system that's controlling your behavior, when in fact you, you didn't do it, but that system did, so you gotta make sense of it and generate an explanation, a narrative. So that, uh, that was where I got started, and I tried to figure out, well, what would be some ki- kinds of non-conscious systems and said, "Well, maybe emotion systems are producing behaviors

2. 1:33 – 3:03

   The amygdala as a survival circuit: detecting and responding to danger

   1. JLJoseph LeDoux1:33

      that we don't fully understand." And I started studying that and ended up, uh, figuring out how this part of the brain called the amygdala receives information about the environment and then controls, orchestrates all the responses, fight-flight kinds of responses to help you protect yourself. And the, um, you know, s- after many years of doing that, I started asking, "Well, how far back does this ability to detect and respond to danger go?" We know that bugs and flies can do that, and research had been done showing that, uh, bugs and flies have certain molecules in their brain that are important in these kinds of protective defensive behaviors and including the ability to learn about them and store those as memories. So it's easier to work on those little tiny, um, uh, invertebrates than it is to do studies in a complex brain, even like a rat brain, which is pretty complex. Um, so given that what these people had discovered about invertebrates, I and others who were studying, uh, mammals decided to see if the same molecules might be involved in mammalian learning, and in fact it was. So now that raises the question, you've got the same molecules doing the same thing, the same molecules, the same genes doing the same thing in ancient invertebrates and in, uh, and animals like us. So you ask, where back in time is the ancestor that

3. 3:03 – 5:52

   A deep evolutionary timeline: from bilateral animals back to single cells

   1. JLJoseph LeDoux3:03

      made that possible? You know, if we've got the same genes, either it kinda happened spontaneously separately or there's a common ancestor. And indeed there's a common ancestor, and that goes back to the first organism, first animal that had a bilateral body, which means it had a left, right, front, and a back, uh, and a top and a bottom. So it has kind of three-dimensional sides. Before that, there were animals like jellyfish that were radial, they had, but no front and back. They just have a, a top and a bottom. And before that, there's sponges, which have no front, back, top, bottom. They're just kind of randomly organized. So that's kind of the, that's the story of animals, sponges to jellyfish to these bilateral animals. So the ancestor, uh, the, the, the bilateral animal that we're talking about gave rise to those two lines, one that became all these invertebrates like flies and bugs and snails and octopus and all those things, and another to animals like us, vertebrates, all the, um, fish, reptiles, mammals, birds, and so forth. So those are two separate lines that inherited these genes that make the memory and defensive behavior possible. So you say, "Well, how far back then it, does it stop there?" And no, it doesn't because you can find those genes on through jellyfish and then keep going into single-cell organisms. Now, these are like protozoa, uh, things that give you intestinal, um, their, uh, intestinal parasites so they can, you know, give you upset stomach. And, um, things like amoeba, paramecia that you might have heard of in, you know, biology class in high school or something. Um, these have no nervous system, and yet they detect and respond to danger, they learn about their environment, they do all these sorts of things. And where did they come from? Well, if you go all the way back to where they came from, uh, even simpler kind of organism, s- still single-cell, of course, like bacterial cells. Now these guys go back to the beginning of life. The first cell that ever lived some 3.7 billion years ago that gave rise to the entire history of life was a bacterial-like cell that started dividing. Now what's interesting, that cell that started dividing is the mother of every bacterial cell that ever lived. So that cell is, uh, it's, it's more like its rep- you know, that cell is still alive because it's, they reproduce by cell division. So that stell- cell just keeps reproducing, and part of that first cell ever is still with us today in all the bacterial cells that are, that are around. Uh, it's kind of a mind-blowing thing, isn't it? (laughs)

4. 5:52 – 9:14

   LUCA and the non-teleological view of “progress” in evolution

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:52

      It's incredibly mind-blowing. (laughs) Do we have any idea why the first cell decided to divide?

   2. JLJoseph LeDoux5:57

      Well, (clears throat) i- it, this, I shouldn't say it's the first cell that decided to divide. This, it's the first cell-

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:02

      Bacterial cell?

   4. JLJoseph LeDoux6:03

      It's the first cell that-... was able to, to sustain life long enough to give off offspring that could s- sustain and sustain and sustain.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:12

      Uh-huh.

   6. JLJoseph LeDoux6:13

      So there were probably lots of experiments before a kind of cell or kind of group of cells had the right stuff to be able to do that. So they ... those others never made it because they didn't have quite enough of what it took to be a cell that could do that. (smacks lips) So the first cell, I mean, it's kind of a hypothetical cell. It's called LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of life.

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:36

      Whoa.

   8. JLJoseph LeDoux6:36

      Yeah. (laughs) And that ... so that's about 3.7, 3.8 billion years ago. Um, but it could have been a bunch of cells, you know, a collection of cells, cell types, uh, that, that ... one of which then, you know, populated all of life.

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:52

      The weird thing about life is not just that it's different and it varies so much, but that it's e- it's ever-increasing in its complexity.

   10. JLJoseph LeDoux7:03

       Well-

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:03

       If you go back to the single cell and then you come all the way-

   12. JLJoseph LeDoux7:07

       (clears throat)

   13. JRJoe Rogan7:07

       ... to today, to a person-

   14. JLJoseph LeDoux7:08

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan7:08

       ... like what a weird-

   16. JLJoseph LeDoux7:10

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan7:10

       ... sort of transformation it is.

   18. JLJoseph LeDoux7:11

       Well, uh, you know, it's dangerous to talk about as if we're moving towards some kind of goal, you know, like-

   19. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       Right. Is it dangerous?

   20. JLJoseph LeDoux7:19

       ... w- that, that we are the goal.

   21. JRJoe Rogan7:20

       Well, I'm not saying we're the-

   22. JLJoseph LeDoux7:21

       We're not the goal.

   23. JRJoe Rogan7:21

       I don't think we're the goal.

   24. JLJoseph LeDoux7:22

       No, we're not. We're definitely not the goal.

   25. JRJoe Rogan7:23

       I, I'm, I've been more and more thinking that artificial life-

   26. JLJoseph LeDoux7:26

       (clears throat) .

   27. JRJoe Rogan7:26

       ... is the goal.

   28. JLJoseph LeDoux7:27

       Mm-hmm. Well, th- I mean, there's no goal of life.

   29. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       Right, of course.

   30. JLJoseph LeDoux7:31

       The- there's ... survival is the only goal of every organism, and that's, uh, that's what that first cell was able to do, is to generate a set of biological properties that could st- sustain itself long enough to reproduce. That's all you have to do, be ... you have to live long enough to reproduce. And to do that, you have to have energy resources, so you have to incorporate nutrients. You've gotta balance your fluids. Otherwise, you know, you have to keep your ions straight or your ... the, the cell will get too big and explode or get too small and collapse. You've gotta thermoregulate 'cause all of these things depend on the right kind of internal temperature, and you have to reproduce. Those are the, the survival requirements of a cell, but they're also the survival requirements of a human. So the same things that a bacterial cell has to do to live through the day and create a species is exactly what we do every day to reproduce ourselves. We have to eat, drink, defend against danger, uh, incorporate nutrients and balance fluids and ions that way, uh, defend, you know, reproduce. And so that was the mind-blowing thing. See, I wrote the whole ... three quarters of the book as a scientific journalist because I didn't know any of this, this stuff. I had to just learn it, uh, and it was a lot of fun, but it took a long time. (laughs)
5. 9:14 – 11:45

   Two levels of consciousness: awareness vs. self-aware mental time travel

   1. JLJoseph LeDoux9:14

      ... um, I, you know, say, "Okay, well, our ... we have these two kinds of, of, uh, significant experiences in our lives that, uh, that occupy the human mind." One is the kind that, uh, we can call an awareness of facts, you know, "I ... this thing is here," and the other is what we might call, um, a self-awareness where the ... I ... it's, it's me that is aware that that is a bottle. So that's a s- that's a higher level, and that is what appears to be unique to the human mind, the ability to represent the self as a subject. In other words, to have these subjective experiences that have a personal past. It's not just the past, but your past. You lived it. And a personal present and a potential future that you can imagine different scenarios of you existing in, in the future. So that requires, uh ... I mean, th- that's called autonoetic consciousness, the ability to, to self-know about where you are in time. And it depends ... the- this is an idea that was proposed by a guy named Endel Tulving, a very distinguished psychologist who's, uh, retired now. (smacks lips) But, uh, his idea was that, um, the unique aspect of, of the human mind is mental time travel, the ability to project ourselves in the past, present, and future. And without that kind of consciousness, we're limited to kind of factual information. Something is there. You know, that might ... I might be able to say, "Oh, food is there," or, "Drink is there," or, "A sexual partner is there," but not necessarily that I want that food. I want ... you know. You might have a kind of biological urge towards it. Now, from the outside, it looks like everything we do is intentional and willful. So I think I'm controlling my behavior. You think you're controlling yours. I see you do something that I might have done in a similar situation. I think you intentionally control that. We see a dog doing something that would be similar to what we do, we think we know why the dog is doing that because it had some intention. But the fact is, if we start taking these things apart in the brain, we see that the systems that control very simple behaviors are not the ones that are doing all this

6. 11:45 – 16:56

   Why the amygdala isn’t a “fear center” (and how the idea misled research)

   1. JLJoseph LeDoux11:45

      high-level conscious thought. Take the example of, uh, the area I've worked on for all these years, which is threat detection. Um, now, the ... this part of the brain called the amygdala is key to the detection and response to threat in a kind of basic sense. Um, you know, a threat comes up, you freeze if there's a snake, for example. Um, now, it's all ... because of that, it's been assumed that the reason you freeze is because you're afraid.And therefore, that the amygdala is also making the fear, because the amygdala experiences the fear, and that's why you produce the response. But I've... for, for the longest time in... th- throughout most of my career, I've said the amygdala does not consciously experience fear. And yet my work has been used to kind of sell and, uh, and defend this idea of the amygdala is the brain's fear center, and I think that's completely wrong. The-

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:41

      Why do you think it's been misinterpreted?

   3. JLJoseph LeDoux12:44

      It's a long, complicated, uh, story, but it... you know, it's... it... partly, it's my fault because I was not, um, as vigilant as I should have been when I was describing it. See, what I did was I'd... I would talk about the amygdala as a non-conscious state of fear, non-conscious implicit fear. Um, and I would... I would say that while the neocortex is where we consciously experience fear and those are separate. But that was too complicated. The... you know, the journalists kind of ignored it and it was just... it just became the amygdala is the brain's fear center. Even the scientists ignored it because, you know, we were studying and... you know, I, I kind of gave up after a while and said, "Okay, we talk about it in terms of fear." Um, because... you know, that... there was a lot of money to be, um, directed towards research, if you're studying fear and how you could treat that. But I think it's... you know, it's been kind of a, a wrong path because it's led to the development of medications that don't really work. So all the big companies are getting out of, of the anti-anxiety business, anti-fear business because people still feel fearful or anxious when they take them.

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:58

      You mean like Xanax, things along those lines?

   5. JLJoseph LeDoux14:00

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-

   6. JRJoe Rogan14:01

      Companies are getting out of the Xanax business?

   7. JLJoseph LeDoux14:03

      Um, benzos, Xanax, yeah. I mean, they're not... the... either that or repurposing them to... for other purposes, you know. But so what happens is you... the way these things... you know, the... these things... the basic drugs were discovered in the 60s, uh, almost accidentally in some cases, you know, not rather than by some hypothesis. So the only thing that's been discovered since then is more versions of the same thing with, you know, slightly fewer side effects. But there's been no new discovery of a new kind of drug that's gonna help people. And why is that? Well, the, the way the drugs are discovered is they take a rat or a mouse, put it in a challenging situation, give it some different medications, and the ones that make the animal less timid in those situations is assumed to make the animal less fearful, and that's why he's less timid. So when you give it to a person, they should be less fearful. But what you find is, say, a person with social anxiety might find it easier to go to the party, they're less timid, but still anxious while they're there. And the reason is, that we now know, is that damage to the amygdala in a person doesn't necessarily also eliminate the feeling of fear. It gets rid of the, the body responses, but not the feeling.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JLJoseph LeDoux15:18

      So it was a misunderstanding of what behavior can tell us. We treat behavior as if it's an ambassador of the mind, but behavior is really a tool of survival that goes back to those first cells that ever lived who had to defend against danger. Bacterial cells move in the... in the water and then they come across, like, you know, a, a gradient of some chemical that's a toxin. As soon as they detect that, they bounce away and go in a different direction. If they are go-... if they find a gradient of something that is a nutrient, they keep going and, and absorb it. So they have the ability to detect what's useful and harmful in their lives. These are not... these are not there for psychology, they're simply there to keep the organism alive. And many of the behaviors that persist throughout the whole history of life are like that. They're there because each of the cell and... cells in the body has to, you know, do all these things to stay alive, and so the organism as a whole has to do it as well. Defend against danger, incorporate nutrients, balance fluids, thermoregulate, reproduce. So these are survival tools, not mind tools. Now, we can use our mind in conjunction with these things, uh, and because we can, we conflate every time we're freezing in the front of a snake to the fact that the fear is what's causing it. But the fear is a separate process. It's the awareness that that stuff is happening to you.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:46

       The awareness that that stuff is happening to you. So-

   11. JLJoseph LeDoux16:48

       So, so no self, no fear.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       Oh.

   13. JLJoseph LeDoux16:51

       That's my T-shirt there. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:52

       Whoa. That's deep.

   15. JLJoseph LeDoux16:53

       That's my merch on the, the book. (laughs)

7. 16:56 – 27:10

   Benzos, alcohol, and why “turning down the volume” isn’t a cure

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:56

      (laughs) Now, how do things like Xanax work? What, what's the mechanical process?

   2. JLJoseph LeDoux17:03

      Okay. So the, um... that's a part of the class of drugs called benzodiazepine, and they, um, will... they bind to receptors in the brain. The brain has receptors for all kinds of, uh, uh, chemicals, and many of these things are things that exist in nature, and what... that they want... that they bind to is a receptor called the GABA receptor, which is the major inhibitory transmitter in the brain. So when you have a benzodiazepine binding to a GABA receptor, what it's gonna do is increase inhibition. So the... you know, the kind of simple reason why those things can help is they kind of inhibit, so they tone down the brain a bit, and so things that would normally trigger a response no longer trigger it. So it's like increasing the threshold for something to bother you in a sense.

   3. JRJoe Rogan17:59

      And a lot of people enjoy that with alcohol. They're not supposed to?

   4. JLJoseph LeDoux18:03

      Well, uh, alcohol also attacks those receptors-

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:06

      Yes. Yeah.

   6. JLJoseph LeDoux18:06

      ... so it's like, uh... you get double the, the effect.

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:08

      Right. Is that why they tell people, "Don't have Xanax with alcohol"?

   8. JLJoseph LeDoux18:10

      Uh, yeah, 'cause you can... you know, if you... if you take a lot of Xanax and drink a lot of booze, you can OD.

   9. JRJoe Rogan18:16

      Or you could just say crazy things-

   10. JLJoseph LeDoux18:18

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       ... and not, not totally be aware. Do you remember that story about a woman? She was, uh, I believe she was a publicist, and she got on a plane-

   12. JLJoseph LeDoux18:27

       Good.

   13. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       ... and she was flying to Africa, and she, uh, said, "I'm going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white. LOL."

   14. JLJoseph LeDoux18:35

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:35

       She thought she was just being funny-

   16. JLJoseph LeDoux18:37

       Uh-huh.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:38

       ... and you laughed, and- (laughs)

   18. JLJoseph LeDoux18:39

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:39

       ... she landed in Africa-

   20. JLJoseph LeDoux18:41

       That must have been a surprise. (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       Ooh. Do you know the story?

   22. JLJoseph LeDoux18:43

       No, but there are other stories like that.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:45

       Oh, my God. This, this was one of the original stories of someone ruining their entire life-

   24. JLJoseph LeDoux18:49

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       ... with just putting, uh, you know, one little tweet-

   26. JLJoseph LeDoux18:51

       Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:52

       ... online. She thought she was being funny. Like-

   28. JLJoseph LeDoux18:54

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:54

       ... she, she would say a bunch of snarky things like that, a bunch of funny, trying to be funny.

   30. JLJoseph LeDoux18:59

       Right.
8. 27:10 – 29:30

   Fear vs. anxiety: choice, worry, and the dark side of human foresight

   1. JRJoe Rogan27:10

      ... human species, w- when you study anxiety and you study fear and all these d- different things, is, are w- are we experiencing high levels of it because there's not as much real physical danger as our ancestors experienced, and it's almost like we're looking for it when it's not necessarily there? Like, we're, we're programmed to be able to deal with it?

   2. JLJoseph LeDoux27:33

      Yeah, that's a, a good point. Um, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that's a good way to think about it. I mean, you know, the philosopher Kierkegaard said that, "Anxiety is the price we pay for the human ability to choose."

   3. JRJoe Rogan27:47

      Mm.

   4. JLJoseph LeDoux27:48

      And this is where our autonomic consciousness comes in, our ability to, to think of ourselves as having a past and a future, and to be able to, to, to plan and choose in the future. You know, he said it started with Adam making the first choice as a human in the Garden of Eden, and that was where it all, uh, began. Um, so ... And our ability ... You know, you can rephrase that statement by saying, "Our ability, um, to choose is, um, what allows us to be anxious." Because that is, um, what anxiety is. A worry about what we're ... Have we ... Are we gonna make the right decision? You know, how can we deal with this thing that's coming up? It's a worry about the future.

   5. JRJoe Rogan28:30

      Yeah, and the ability to think about the possibilities-

   6. JLJoseph LeDoux28:34

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan28:34

      ... like, what could go wrong?

   8. JLJoseph LeDoux28:35

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan28:35

      What could go right? Am I doing the right thing?

   10. JLJoseph LeDoux28:37

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan28:37

       And then to contemplate all those various choices-

   12. JLJoseph LeDoux28:41

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan28:42

       ... anxiety.

   14. JLJoseph LeDoux28:42

       Yeah. So, like, you know, you're, you're walking through the woods. There's a snake. You might freeze, but almost instantly, that fear that is generated by you freezing and seeing the snake, um, morphs into anxiety, you know? Will the snake bite me?

   15. JRJoe Rogan28:57

       Mm.

   16. JLJoseph LeDoux28:58

       If it bites me, will I get to a doctor? Will he have the antidote? If I die, what'll happen to my family? You know, does ... That's worry, that's anxiety. So these are ... They're s- they're kind of separate-

   17. JRJoe Rogan29:08

       Hm.

   18. JLJoseph LeDoux29:08

       Fears about, uh, a s- a danger that's present, anxieties about one that hasn't happened yet, but almost always, as soon as you're afraid, that makes you anxious about what's gonna happen.

   19. JRJoe Rogan29:18

       And then there's general existential angst.

   20. JLJoseph LeDoux29:21

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan29:22

       The, the, just-

   22. JLJoseph LeDoux29:23

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan29:23

       ... the, the f- the life itself-

   24. JLJoseph LeDoux29:25

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan29:25

       ... the existence-

   26. JLJoseph LeDoux29:26

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan29:26

       ... is the, just a, "What is this?"

   28. JLJoseph LeDoux29:29

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan29:29

       "What ... " (laughs)

9. 29:30 – 39:27

   Consciousness at scale: tribalism, politics, and climate risk as a collective problem

   1. JLJoseph LeDoux29:30

      Yeah. And all of that is due to, um, our prefrontal cortex, our ability to conceptualize, to, um, you know, imagine things that, that have never been imagined before, to create art, to build, to create architecture, build buildings, imagine going to the moon, designing a, th- an instrument to do that and actually pulling it off, and make sure it could get back. All of that is something that our special kind of consciousness, uh, enables. But it has a dark side, which is, it also allows us to be incredibly selfish and self-centered and narcissistic, and to, uh, support tribes and groups. And, you know, um, unless we ... I mean, I think our, that the world survives best when y-It's either completely isolated, all the cultures are isolated, or if we could also somehow be together in a more unified way, 'cause the direction we're going now, where each country is isolating itself, but is- is still so entangled with all the others is a recipe dis- for disaster.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:48

      Is this because we evolved essentially without long-term travel? I mean, we kind of evolved to stay in whatever area the resources were in when we were hunters and gatherers-

   3. JLJoseph LeDoux30:59

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:59

      ... and then somewhere along the line, somebody figured out boats and how to get on a horse-

   5. JLJoseph LeDoux31:03

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      ... and the- the next thing you know, you're visiting people.

   7. JLJoseph LeDoux31:05

      I think it's more about, um ... you know, we have a- a- a special kind of inquisitiveness that we can ... because we can mentally model the next step and plan what are the options, you know, try to anticipate the, uh, the problems that are gonna come up, and take those steps. Um, and- and that's a pretty special thing. But it also allows us to plan in a kinda devious way, where, you know, me or my group is gonna benefit, and, uh, if mine benefits, I don't want the other one to benefit 'cause we gotta keep everything separate.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:46

      Hmm.

   9. JLJoseph LeDoux31:47

      So it's- it's, you know, consciousness, our kind of consciousness is our- our, you know, greatest achievement, but also probably our worst aspect.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:56

       Oof. But it's- uh, hmm. But it's what makes us human.

   11. JLJoseph LeDoux32:01

       It is.

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:01

       The- imagining humans with no consciousness is impossible.

   13. JLJoseph LeDoux32:04

       No. No, th- there's no way to go in that direction. That's, uh-

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       So is- is the key to this thing, as the human race, is it managing our consciousness? Or perhaps maybe work like yours, giving us the tools to understand one of the mechanisms involved, that maybe that can help us sort of navigate our biological traps and-

   15. JLJoseph LeDoux32:27

       Maybe. (laughs) I mean, uh, I think it's ... you know, certainly we don't ... I think the- ... I- I mean, I have no idea what your position on, uh, climate change is, but, uh, personally I think that things are happening and something needs to be done.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:42

       That's clearly things are happening.

   17. JLJoseph LeDoux32:43

       And that- you know, there was a- I read a couple of editorials, uh, probably in The New York Times or something, uh, a couple months ago. One was about how yes, the- you know, things are changing and, uh, we have a right to worry, but, you know, we shouldn't worry about the Earth as, um- you know, the famous quote is, "Gaia's a tough bitch." So the Earth will survive, but the configuration of life on it is unlikely to continue to be the same under those conditions. The more the- everything changes, the conditions of life change, and the first things to go, um- and this is what happened to the dinosaurs- are large energy-demanding organisms, because as the conditions change, um, y- you know, the- the climate that we've lived in, we've succeeded because we were able to benefit from that kind of climate. But as the climate begins to change, our kind is not gonna be able to succeed as well because those conditions are- you know, the waters are rising, the deserts are, uh, expanding. All these things are happening and it's just not gonna be, um ... you know, species don't last that long.

   18. JRJoe Rogan34:01

       Right.

   19. JLJoseph LeDoux34:01

       A few- few million years and they go. So our time may be ... (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan34:05

       Well, we've only been around for what?

   21. JLJoseph LeDoux34:07

       Uh-

   22. JRJoe Rogan34:07

       300, 400,000 years and something?

   23. JLJoseph LeDoux34:10

       Mm ... well, it depends on what- what we are.

   24. JRJoe Rogan34:12

       Who you call we, right?

   25. JLJoseph LeDoux34:13

       Yeah, but-

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:13

       And the Neanderthals were around quite a bit longer than that.

   27. JLJoseph LeDoux34:16

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:17

       And they're not here anymore.

   29. JLJoseph LeDoux34:19

       So, uh, we don't have a- uh, I mean, I think that we can use our minds to try and, you know, help us get through this, but that's only gonna work if we can do that collectively. That's the scary part. We have to work together collectively as a world because these are not local issues. These are global issues.

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:44

       Yeah. Right.
10. 39:27 – 48:38

    Creativity, language, and the brain’s ability to “jump” across concepts

    1. JRJoe Rogan39:27

       W- we're going down a, we're going down a weird road. What do you think is the source of creativity? Like, somewhere along the line, I mean, and we've seen it, right? I mean, there's some speculation and scientists have sort of generally agreed that some monkeys are in the Stone Age, that some primates are i- in what would be considered Stone Age. They're starting to use tools, they're starting to use sticks.

    2. JLJoseph LeDoux39:49

       Right.

    3. JRJoe Rogan39:50

       And there's a famous photograph that I love of an orangutan. Where are we gonna get a ph- a copy of that? We should get that orangutan with a spear. Can we make a note of that? There's a crazy orangutan image of a- an orangutan holding onto a branch and then spearfishing.

    4. JLJoseph LeDoux40:05

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JRJoe Rogan40:05

       It's amazing.

    6. JLJoseph LeDoux40:06

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan40:06

       And apparently-

    8. JLJoseph LeDoux40:07

       (clears throat)

    9. JRJoe Rogan40:07

       ... he had seen humans do it.

    10. JLJoseph LeDoux40:09

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JRJoe Rogan40:09

        So that's where he learned the behavior.

    12. JLJoseph LeDoux40:11

        By imitation, right?

    13. JRJoe Rogan40:12

        Yes. But still, that is a primate using a weapon-

    14. JLJoseph LeDoux40:16

        Right.

    15. JRJoe Rogan40:16

        ... to try to spearfish. Look at this photo.

    16. JLJoseph LeDoux40:18

        (laughs)

    17. JRJoe Rogan40:18

        See what I mean? Is that incredible?

    18. JLJoseph LeDoux40:21

        (laughs) Nice.

    19. JRJoe Rogan40:21

        I mean, that is incredible. I mean, that's, like, really thoughtful and skillful. And the way he's hanging, I mean, my goodness. Look at that. I f- I love that picture. That picture's amazing.

    20. JLJoseph LeDoux40:33

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan40:34

        Now, th- this c- the creativity that allows you to get food when you couldn't get food, allows you to escape from environmental conditions, allows you to escape from predators, all these things are rewarded by the continuing of your genetics.

    22. JLJoseph LeDoux40:49

        Right.

    23. JRJoe Rogan40:50

        So-

    24. JLJoseph LeDoux40:50

        But there are other things that come into play. One of the specialties that, uh, that came along, I think is a byproduct of having language, and by language I don't mean words, but what language did, but what was required for language to come out of the brain, which is the development of a cognitive sort of architecture in our brain that allowed all kinds of, um, mental jumping around. So for example, um, for most animals to learn, you know, who to trust and who not to trust and what some- what who's- what, in any given situation, who's gonna do what to whom by just looking around, they have to go through trial and error learning and see the experience all of that a lot. But the human mind can simulate, create a mental model, and instantaneously make those kinds of, uh, predictions on the basis of very limited information. Um, and this is based on something... Well, we, eh, the re- the relation to language is that syntax gives you those kinds of, uh, options because you can, you know, you have, um, um, uh, past, present, future states that can be related to you and to others and so forth, and personal pronouns are very important in terms of, uh, me, I, mine, you, yours. That those, the, the point when those come in in a child is the first point when, I think, self-awareness can fully be tested and, and shown. Um-... and some people say, "Well they have it, but they just couldn't express it." Uh, others say no, that the arrival of the pronoun, personal pronouns are very important in the child's development of a sense of, of self. But anyway, so language changes, um, the brain, changes the cognitive architecture of the brain, and allows for something, just to throw out a technical term, hierarchical relational re- reasoning, which is the ability to think across kind of conceptual categories, um, laterally and horizontally, uh, so that information, you can just jump around and that's kind of what creativity is-

    25. JRJoe Rogan43:04

        Mm-hmm.

    26. JLJoseph LeDoux43:04

        ... the ability to just jump around in mental space and come up with something by a unique combination of, of those things.

    27. JRJoe Rogan43:12

        Do you, do you think that there's variation in terms of the, the types of languages, like Chinese versus Spanish versus ... that they l- allow you to interface with the world in a different way-

    28. JLJoseph LeDoux43:25

        I-

    29. JRJoe Rogan43:25

        ... because the language are structured very differently?

    30. JLJoseph LeDoux43:27

        Yeah. I, I think that's absolutely right, but I don't know f- enough about other languages to say exactly how.
11. 48:38 – 1:10:58

    Measuring emotions and treating anxiety: meditation, CBT, and multi-step approaches

    1. JRJoe Rogan48:38

       D- have you studied various ways that people mitigate anxiety and fear, like meditation and yoga, and all these different things that sort of change people's states?

    2. JLJoseph LeDoux48:47

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan48:48

       Those-

    4. JLJoseph LeDoux48:48

       I mean, I haven't, I, you know, haven't studied it myself, but, um, uh, I have researched it a bit. Uh, I've tr- I try to do meditation myself, because, uh, I think it's the... probably the most direct and effective way in the moment to... you know, I'm sitting in the room outside waiting for you, I just... had my hat and sunglasses on, just trying to chill out and meditate a little bit, get ready for you.

    5. JRJoe Rogan49:09

       Mm-hmm. Do you do that on a regular basis?

    6. JLJoseph LeDoux49:12

       Uh, you know, it's, it's hard to maintain it, 'cause, uh, life gets busy, and it seems like at the hardest time to do it is when you need it most, right? (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan49:19

       Yeah. I think it's one of those things like hygiene, where you just sort of have to say, "Well, it's hard to take a shower."

    8. JLJoseph LeDoux49:25

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan49:25

       But you have to take a shower.

    10. JLJoseph LeDoux49:26

        Yeah, yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan49:26

        You don't stink.

    12. JLJoseph LeDoux49:27

        Right.

    13. JRJoe Rogan49:27

        You have to brush your teeth.

    14. JLJoseph LeDoux49:28

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan49:28

        Or you'll get cavities.

    16. JLJoseph LeDoux49:29

        Right.

    17. JRJoe Rogan49:30

        You have to meditate.

    18. JLJoseph LeDoux49:30

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan49:30

        You'll go crazy.

    20. JLJoseph LeDoux49:31

        Yeah. It's perfect, that- that's the way it should be done.

    21. JRJoe Rogan49:34

        I think that is what it... so, when you examine those kinda tools, like tools that people have sort of imagined or created to s- to sort of in some way alleviate anxiety or enhance perspective, do you, do you d- spend much time dwelling on the creation of those things and what's going on there?

    22. JLJoseph LeDoux49:53

        Uh, what do you mean by the creation?

    23. JRJoe Rogan49:54

        Well, the... like, a human had to figure out-

    24. JLJoseph LeDoux49:56

        Oh, yeah, okay.

    25. JRJoe Rogan49:56

        ... how to meditate. A per-

    26. JLJoseph LeDoux49:57

        Right.

    27. JRJoe Rogan49:57

        ... a person had to figure out these modalities-

    28. JLJoseph LeDoux49:59

        Right.

    29. JRJoe Rogan50:00

        ... these different ways to sort of interface with-

    30. JLJoseph LeDoux50:04

        Yeah. So, le- let's take that from, uh... take that to the nature of most approaches to fear and anxiety today. Um, hold... just hold off the meditation part slightly.
12. 1:10:58 – 1:36:24

    Genes, individuality, and why simple ‘one gene/one region’ stories fail

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:10:58

       Yeah. Uh (sighs) ... it's- it's- it's so fascinating though how people vary so widely in their- their reaction to certain fears or to certain things that could induce fear, whether it's dogs or, you know, whatever irrational thing that people have-

    2. JLJoseph LeDoux1:11:17

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:11:17

       ... the- the source of that is r- really often speculated that there's like some sort of a genetic component to it. Do you buy into that?

    4. JLJoseph LeDoux1:11:27

       So let's say... let's say, um, that, you know, in any kind of situation like that, there are multiple systems in the brain that are gonna be involved.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:11:36

       Mm.

    6. JLJoseph LeDoux1:11:36

       We're gonna isolate the amygdala as, you know, hypothetical part of that system that is detecting and responding to the stimulus. So we're gonna go into the amygdala and focus on one little part of it, uh, called the lateral nucleus. That doesn't matter, but it's the part that gets the input from the outside world. So that is the gateway into the amygdala. So now let's talk about... let's say it's got... I don't know, 100,000 cells and neurons, um, and, um, each of those neurons is gonna have a bell curve that's based on the genes that made that cell and whatever kinds of electrical signals it's had throughout the life of the organism. So you're gonna have 100,000 bell curves of, you know, various degrees that when the stimulus comes in, those cells that- that are activated, their little bell curves are gonna determine how much they respond to that.And that's gonna propagate to other cells that have their own bell curves in areas and so on down the line. That what happens at the level of behavior is a very complicated, uh, kind of summation of all those bell curves, of all those cells that happen to be activated. So it's not like, you know, one thing is programmed. It's not like a brain area is programmed. It's all about what's happened at those specific cells, both through genetics and experience. So we often kind of oversimplify things by thinking, "Well, there's a- a gene or a- an area that has, um, inherited that thing."

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:13:19

       When you think of human beings and you think of what we used to be when we were some sort of a lower hominid and now what we are now, and you think of all these various components that are at play, do you- do you ever try to imagine what a human of 1,000 years or 10,000 or 100,000 years from now will be like?

    8. JLJoseph LeDoux1:13:39

       Oh, they're- they're gonna be different. You know, the- we're not, uh... Every organism is in constant change, you know, the racial mixing, uh, interbreeding happens, um, and so-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:13:54

       Random mutations.

    10. JLJoseph LeDoux1:13:55

        Random mutations.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:13:56

        Natural selection.

    12. JLJoseph LeDoux1:13:56

        Uh, we, we're living longer and so, you know, that's creating, um... People are having babies later, that will change a lot of stuff. So we're gonna be a different, uh, thing. At some point, we may split out into a whole new kind of, uh, human.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:14:12

        The- the- the thing about people having babies older, I mean, there's certainly physical limitations, uh, when people start having babies older. But on the plus side, you're dealing with someone that has a lot more life experience that's raising a child.

    14. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:26

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:14:27

        You know, versus, uh... You know, my mom had me when she was 20, 21. You know, wh- what do you... What the fuck do you know when you're 21? (laughs)

    16. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:34

        (laughs)

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:14:34

        You don't- you don't know much, but if you're a woman who has a child-

    18. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:37

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:14:37

        ... when you're 40, well, hey, that's a- a rich life-

    20. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:40

        Right.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:14:40

        ... with a lot of experiences and maybe you can impart some of that wisdom to your child.

    22. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:44

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:14:44

        And look at things in a different way and maybe that in turn will raise a child that's more balanced.

    24. JLJoseph LeDoux1:14:49

        Right. You know, I- I'm talking out of my area here, but I- I think that, um, probably, you know, the eggs sit around for a long time and I don't know what the effect of aging on the egg is.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:15:06

        Hmm.

    26. JLJoseph LeDoux1:15:06

        Uh, I just don't know.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:15:08

        Well, there's also a big factor with the male sperm.

    28. JLJoseph LeDoux1:15:10

        And male sperm, yes.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:15:10

        And they're thinking that's one of the main contributors to autism-

    30. JLJoseph LeDoux1:15:13

        Right.

Episode duration: 1:47:16