Lisa Feldman Barrett: Counterintuitive Ideas About How the Brain Works | Lex Fridman Podcast #129

1. 0:00 – 2:45

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, and one of the most brilliant and bold thinkers and scientists I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with. She's the author of a book that revolutionized our understanding of emotion in the brain called How Emotions Are Made, and she's coming out with a new book called Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain that you can and should pre-order now. I got a chance to read it already, and it's one of the best short whirlwind introductions to the human brain I've ever read. It comes out on November 17th, but again, if there's anybody worth supporting, it's Lisa, so please do pre-order the book now. Lisa and I agreed to speak once again around the time of the book release, especially because we felt that this first conversation is good to release now, since we talk about the divisive time we're living through in the United States leading up to the election. And she gives me a whole new way to think about it from a neuroscience perspective that is ultimately inspiring of empathy, compassion, and love. Quick mention of each sponsor, followed by some thoughts related to this episode. First sponsor is Athletic Greens, the all-in-one drink that I start every day with to cover all my nutritional bases that I don't otherwise get through my diet naturally. Second is Magic Spoon, low-carb, keto-friendly, delicious cereal that I reward myself with after a productive day. The cocoa flavor is my favorite. Third sponsor is Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends for food, drinks, and unfortunately, for the many bets I have lost to them. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the bold, first-principles way that Lisa approaches her study of the brain is something that has inspired me ever since I learned about her work. And in fact, I invited her to speak at the AGI series I organized at MIT several years ago. But as a little twist, instead of a lecture, we did a conversation in front of the class. I think that was one of the early moments that led me to start this very podcast. It was scary and gratifying, which is exactly what life is all about. And it's kind of funny how life turns on little moments like these, that at the time don't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman. And now, here's my conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett.

2. 2:45 – 4:13

   Are we alone in the universe?

   1. LFLex Fridman2:45

      Since we'll talk a lot about the brain today, do you think ... Let's ask the craziest question. Do you think there is other intelligent life out there in the universe?

   2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett2:54

      Honestly, I've been asking myself lately if there's intelligent life on this planet.

   3. LFLex Fridman2:58

      Oh, yeah.

   4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett2:59

      Uh, you know, I h- I th- I have to think probabilities suggest yes, and also, secretly, I think I just hope that's true. It would be really, um ... I know scientists aren't supposed to have hopes and dreams, but, uh, I, I think it would be really cool, and I also think it would be really sad if it, if it wasn't the case. If we really were alone, that would be ... That, that would seem profoundly sad, I think.

   5. LFLex Fridman3:29

      So it's exciting to you, not scary?

   6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett3:32

      Yeah, no, you know, I take a lot of comfort in curiosity. It's a great, it's a great, um, resource for dealing with, uh, stress. So-

   7. LFLex Fridman3:45

      (laughs)

   8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett3:46

      Um, I'm learning all about mushrooms and, uh, octopuses-

   9. LFLex Fridman3:49

      Yeah.

   10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett3:49

       ... and, you know, all kinds of stuff. Um, and so for me, this counts, I think, in the realm of awe. But also, I think I'm somebody who cultivates awe deliberately on purpose to feel like a speck, you know? I, I find it a relief occasionally.

   11. LFLex Fridman4:07

       To feel small.

   12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:08

       To feel small in a profoundly large and interesting universe.

3. 4:13 – 9:05

   Life on Earth

   1. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:13

   2. LFLex Fridman4:13

      So, maybe to dig more technically on the question of intelligence, do you think it's difficult for intelligent life to arise like it did on Earth? From everything you've written and studied about the brain, how magical of a thing is it in terms of the odds it takes to arise?

   3. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:33

      Yeah, so, you know, magic is just-

   4. LFLex Fridman4:37

      (laughs)

   5. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:39

      Don't get me wrong. I mean, I-

   6. LFLex Fridman4:40

      (laughs)

   7. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:40

      ... I like a m- I like a magic show as much as the next person.

   8. LFLex Fridman4:43

      Yeah.

   9. LBLisa Feldman Barrett4:43

      I, my husband was a magician, uh, at one time, but, uh, you know, magic is just a bunch of stuff that we don't really understand how it works yet. So I would say, from what I understand, there are some major steps in the course of evolution that, at the beginning of life, the step from single cell to multicellular organisms, things like that, which are really not known. I think for me, the question is not so much, um, could it ... you know, what's the likelihood that it would happen again, as much as, um, what are the steps and how long would it take? And if it were to happen again on Earth, would, would we end up with the same, you know, menu of life forms that we currently have now? And I think the answer's probably no, right? There's just so much about evolution that is stochastic and driven by chance.

   10. LFLex Fridman5:43

       But the question is whether that menu would be equally delicious, meaning, like, there'd be rich complexity of the kind of ... Like, would we get dolphins and humans, or whoever else falls in that category of weirdly intelligent, seemingly intelligent? However we define that.

   11. LBLisa Feldman Barrett6:01

       Well, I think that has to be true if you just look at the range of creatures who've gone extinct. I mean-

   12. LFLex Fridman6:07

       Right.

   13. LBLisa Feldman Barrett6:08

       ... if you look at the range of creatures that are, are on the Earth now, it's incredible, and, you know, it's sort of trite to say that, but it actually is really incredible. Um, particularly... I don't know, I mean, animals... There are animals that seem really ordinary until you watch them closely and then they become miraculous, you know, like certain types of birds which do very miraculous things. Uh, um, build, you know, bowers and do dances and all these really funky things that y- are hard to explain, uh, with a standard evolutionary story. Although, you know, um-

   14. LFLex Fridman6:45

       Yeah. The-

   15. LBLisa Feldman Barrett6:45

       ... people have them.

   16. LFLex Fridman6:46

       ... birds are weird. They do a lot of... For mating purposes, they, they have a concept of beauty-

   17. LBLisa Feldman Barrett6:52

       Well-

   18. LFLex Fridman6:52

       ... that I haven't quite... Maybe you know much better, but it doesn't seem to fit evolutionary arguments well.

   19. LBLisa Feldman Barrett6:58

       It does fit. Well, it depends, right? So I think you're talking about The Evolution of Beauty, the, um, book that was written recently by, what is it, Fromm, fr- um, is that his name? Richard Fromm, I think, at Yale.

   20. LFLex Fridman7:10

       Oh, interesting. No. I didn't... Oh.

   21. LBLisa Feldman Barrett7:11

       Oh, it's a great book. It's very controversial though, because he is argu- he's making the argument that the, the question about birds and some other animals is why would they engage in such metabolically costly, um, displays when it doesn't improve their fitness at all? And the answer that he gives is the answer that Darwin gave, which is sexual selection. Um, not natural selection. But, you know, selection can occur for all kinds of reasons. There could be artificial selection, which is when we breed animals, right, which is actually how Darwin... That, that observation helped Darwin come to the idea of natural selection.

   22. LFLex Fridman7:50

       Oh, interesting.

   23. LBLisa Feldman Barrett7:51

       Um, and then there's sexual selection, um, meaning... And the argument that, that, um, I think his name is Fromm, uh, makes is that, um, that it's the pleasure... The selection pressure is the pleasure of female birds. Which, as a woman and, um, as someone who studies affect, that's a great answer.

   24. LFLex Fridman8:12

       That's okay.

   25. LBLisa Feldman Barrett8:12

       I actually think there probably is natu- I think there is an aspect of natural selection to it, which he maybe hasn't considered.

   26. LFLex Fridman8:18

       But you were saying, uh, the reason we brought up birds is, uh, the, the life we've got now seems to be quite incredible.

   27. LBLisa Feldman Barrett8:24

       Yeah. So you peek into the ocean, peek into the sky-

   28. LFLex Fridman8:27

       Oh, yeah.

   29. LBLisa Feldman Barrett8:28

       ... there are miraculous creatures. Look at creatures who've gone extinct and y- you know, in science fiction, uh, stories, you couldn't dream up something as interesting. So my guess is that, you know, intelligent life evolves in, in many different ways even on this planet. Uh, there isn't one form of intelligence. There's not one brain that gives you intelligence. There are lots of different brain structures that can give you intelligence. So my guess is that the menagerie might not look exactly the way that it looks now, but it would certainly be as, as interesting.

   30. LFLex Fridman9:04

       But

4. 9:05 – 17:53

   Collective intelligence of human brains

   1. LFLex Fridman9:05

      if we look at, um, the human brain versus the brains, or whatever you call 'em, the mechanisms of intelligence in our ancestors, even early ancestors, that you write about, for example, in your, in your new book, uh, what, what's the difference between the, the fanciest brain we got, which is the human brain, and, uh, the ancestor brains that it came from?

   2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett9:31

      Yeah, I think it depends on how far back you wanna go. You know?

   3. LFLex Fridman9:34

      You go all the way back, right? In y- (laughs)

   4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett9:36

      Well, I... (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman9:37

      ... in your book. But, uh, so (laughs) what's the interesting comparison would you say?

   6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett9:41

      Well, first of all, I wouldn't say that the human brain is the fanciest brain we've got. I mean, an octopus brain is pretty different and pretty fancy, and they can do some pretty amazing things that we cannot do. You know, we can't grow back limbs, we can't change color and texture, we can't comport ourselves and squeeze ourselves into a little crevice. I mean, these are things that we invent. These are like superhero abilities that we invent in stories, right? We can't do any of those things. And so the human brain is certainly, um... We can certainly do some things that other animals can't do, um, that seem pretty impressive to us. Um, but, but, uh, I would say that there, there are a number of animal brains which seem pretty impressive to me, that can do interesting things and really impressive things that we can't do.

   7. LFLex Fridman10:29

      I mean, with your work on how emotions are made and so on, you, you kind of repaint the, the view of the brain as, um, as less glamorous, I suppose, than, (laughs) than you would-

   8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett10:41

      Well-

   9. LFLex Fridman10:41

      ... otherwise think.

   10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett10:42

       No.

   11. LFLex Fridman10:42

       Or, like, I, I guess you draw a thread that connects all brains, uh, together in terms of homeostasis and all that kinda stuff.

   12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett10:50

       I, yeah, I wouldn't say that the, that the human brain is any less miraculous than anybody else would say. I just think that there are other brain structures which are also miraculous. And I also think that there are a number of things about the human brain which we share with other, other vertebrates, other animals with backbones, but, um, that are m- that we share these miraculous things. But we can do some things in abundance, and we can also do some things with our brains together, working together, that other animals can't do, or at least we haven't discovered their ability to do it.

   13. LFLex Fridman11:31

       Yeah, the social thing. How... I mean, that's one of the things you write about. Uh, what's, uh... How do you make sense of the fact, uh, like, the book Sapiens and the fact that we're able to kinda connect, like network our brains together, like you write about. I'll try, I'll try to stop saying that. (laughs) Uh, w- is that, is that like some kind of feature that's built into there? Is that unique to our human brains? Like, how do you make sense of that?

   14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett12:02

       What I would say is that our ability to coordinate with each other is not unique.... um, to humans. There are lots of animals, uh, with- who can do that, and we, um ... But what we do with that coordination is unique because of some of the structural features in our brains. And it's not that anim- other animals don't have those structural features, it's we have them in abundance.

   15. LFLex Fridman12:33

       Mm-hmm.

   16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett12:33

       So, you know, the human brain is not larger than you would expect it to be for a primate of our size. If you took a, a chimpanzee and you ex- you grew it to, uh, uh, the size of a human, that chimpanzee would have a brain that was the size of a human brain. So there's nothing special about our brain in terms of its size. There's nothing special about our brain in terms of the, um, the basic blueprint that builds our brain from an embryo, is the basic blueprint that builds all mammalian brains and maybe even all vertebrate brains. Um, it's just that because of its size, and particularly because of the size of the cerebral cortex, which is the, um, a part, um, that people mistakenly, uh, attribute to rationality. (laughs) You know?

   17. LFLex Fridman13:29

       Why mistakenly?

   18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett13:30

       Well-

   19. LFLex Fridman13:30

       Isn't that all, where all the clever stuff happens?

   20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett13:32

       Well, no, it really isn't. And I will also say that lots of clever stuff happens in animals who don't have a cerebral cortex, but-

   21. LFLex Fridman13:39

       Right.

   22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett13:40

       ... um, but, uh, but because of the size of the cerebral cortex and because of some of the features that are enhanced by that size, that gives us the capacity to do things like build civilizations, um, and coordinate with each other, not just to manipulate the physical world, but to add to it in very profound ways. Like, you know, other animals can cooperate with each other and use tools. Um, we draw a line in the sand and we make countries and we even, then we create, you know, uh-

   23. LFLex Fridman14:18

       Well-

   24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett14:19

       ... we create citizens and immigrants.

   25. LFLex Fridman14:20

       But also ideas. I mean, the-

   26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett14:22

       Well-

   27. LFLex Fridman14:23

       ... countries are centered around the concept of, like, ideas is-

   28. LBLisa Feldman Barrett14:26

       Well, my, well, what do you think a citizen is and, and an immigrant? Those are ideas.

   29. LFLex Fridman14:30

       Right.

   30. LBLisa Feldman Barrett14:30

       Those are ideas that we, um, impose on reality and make them real, and then they have very, very serious and real effects, physical effects on people.
5. 17:53 – 24:03

   Triune brain

   1. LFLex Fridman17:54

      So you also write, I think ... L- let's go back to the brain. You write that Plato gave us the idea that the human brain has three brains in it, three forces, uh, which is kind of a compelling notion. Uh, you disagree. First of all, what are the three parts of the brain, and, uh, why do you disagree?

   2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett18:16

      So, Plato's description of the psyche, which for the moment we'll just assume is the same as a mind, there are some scholars who would say, you know, a soul, a psyche, a mind, those aren't actually all the same thing in ancient Greece, but we'll just for now gloss over that. So, Plato's idea was that, and it was a, it was a description of really about moral behavior and moral responsibility in humans. So, the idea was that, you know, the human psyche can be described with an, um, uh, metaphor of two horses and a charioteer. So, one horse for instincts, um, like, um, feeding, and fighting, and fleeing, and, uh, reproduction. I'm trying to control my salty language.

   3. LFLex Fridman19:07

      (laughs) .

   4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:08

      Um, which apparently they print in England. Like, I actually tossed off a fairly-

   5. LFLex Fridman19:14

      What, which? F, S? Which one?

   6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:15

      Yeah. F, F, um-

   7. LFLex Fridman19:16

      Oh, okay.

   8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:17

      ... yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman19:17

      Yeah. (laughs)

   10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:17

       I was like, "You printed that?"

   11. LFLex Fridman19:19

       (laughs) .

   12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:19

       I couldn't believe you printed that. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman19:20

       Without like the stars or whatever?

   14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:22

       No, no, no. There was full print.

   15. LFLex Fridman19:23

       Okay, then.

   16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:23

       Yeah, they also printed the- a B word, and it was really quite-

   17. LFLex Fridman19:27

       Wow.

   18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:28

       ... yeah. Anyways.

   19. LFLex Fridman19:28

       Well, we should (laughs) , we should, we should, uh, learn something from England.

   20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett19:32

       Indeed. Anyways, but instincts, and then the other horse represents emotions, uh, and then the charioteer represents rationality which controls, you know, the two beasts, right? And, um, fast-forward, you know, couple of centuries, and, uh, in the middle of the 20th century, uh, there was a very popular view of brain evolution which suggested that you have this, uh, reptilian core, like a lizard bra- an inner lizard brain, uh, for instincts, and then wrapped around that evolved, on, layered on top of that, evolved a limbic system for, uh, in mammals. And so the- the novelty was in a mammalian brain, which, uh, bestowed mammals with, uh, gave them emotions, the capacity for emotions. And then, um, on top of that, uh, evolved, uh, a cerebral cortex, um, which in, in largely in primates, but, but, um, very large in, in humans. Um, and it's not that I personally disagree, it's that as far back as the 1960s, but really by the 1970s, it was shown pretty clearly w- with evidence from molecular genetics, so peering into cells in the brain to look at the molecular makeup of genes that the brain did not evolve that way. And the irony-

   21. LFLex Fridman21:07

       Hm.

   22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett21:07

       ... is that, um, you know, the, the idea of the, the three-layered brain with an inner lizard, you know, that hijacks your, uh, hijacks your behavior and causes you to do and say things that, uh, you would otherwise not or maybe that you will regret later, that idea, um, became very popular, was popularized by, uh, Carl Sagan in, uh, The Dragons of Eden, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977, when it was already known pretty much in evolutionary neuroscience that the whole, uh, narrative was a myth.

   23. LFLex Fridman21:47

       So, well, the narrative is on the- the way it evolved, but do you ... I mean, again, it's that problem of, um, it being a useful tool of conversation to say like there's a lizard brain, and there's a, like if I get overly emotional on Twitter, that was the lizard brain, and so on. Uh, but do you-

   24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett22:10

       No, I don't think it's useful.

   25. LFLex Fridman22:11

       But-

   26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett22:11

       I think it's a, I think that-

   27. LFLex Fridman22:13

       But is it a, is, is it, uh, is it useful or is it accurate?

   28. LBLisa Feldman Barrett22:17

       I don't think it's accurate, and therefore I don't think it's useful.

   29. LFLex Fridman22:20

       Got it.

   30. LBLisa Feldman Barrett22:21

       So, I, here's what I would say. You know, I think that, um, the way I think about philosophy and science is that they are useful tools for living, and in order to be useful tools for living, they have to help you make good decisions. The triune brain as it's called, this, this three-layer brain, the idea that your brain is like an already baked cake-
6. 24:03 – 31:58

   The predicting brain

   1. LBLisa Feldman Barrett24:03

   2. LFLex Fridman24:03

      What's the more accurate view of the brain that we should use when we're thinking about it?

   3. LBLisa Feldman Barrett24:08

      I'll answer that in a second, but I'll say that even our notion of what an instinct is or what a reflex is is not quite right, right? So, if you look at evidence from, um-... ecology, for example, and you look at animals in their ecological context, what you can see is that even things which are reflexes, eh, are very context sensitive. Um, the, the brains of those animals are executing so-called instinctual actions in a very, very context-sensitive way. And so, you know, even when a physician, you know, takes the... You know, it's like the idea of your patellar, uh, reflex, where they hit, you know, your patellar tendon on your knee and you, you kick. The m- the force with which you kick, and so on, inf- is influenced by all kinds of things. It's, it's... A reflex isn't like a robotic, uh, response. And, um, so I think a better way is a way that... to think about how brains work, is the way that, um, m- matches our best understanding, our best scientific understanding, which I think is really cool, uh, because it's really counterintuitive. So, how I came to this view, and it's... I'm certainly not the only one who holds this view, I was reading work in... on neuroanatomy, and the, the view that I'm about to tell you was sugges- strongly suggested by that. And then I was reading work in signal processing, like by eng- you know, electrical engineering, and th- similarly, it, the work suggested that, that, the research suggested that the brain worked this way. And I'll just say that I was reading across multiple literatures, and they were... who don't speak to each other, and they were all pointing in this direction. And so far, although some of the details are still up for grabs, the general gist, I think, is pr- I've not come across anything yet which really violates... and I'm looking.

   4. LFLex Fridman26:10

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LBLisa Feldman Barrett26:11

      Um, and so the idea is something like this. It's very counterintuitive. Um, so the way to describe it is to say that your brain doesn't react to things in the world. It's not... Uh, to us, it feels like our eyes and... are, um, are windows on the world. We see things, we hear things, we, we react to them. Um, in psychology, we call this stimulus response. So, um, your face is a s- your voice is a stimulus to me. I receive input and then I react to it. Uh, and I might react very automatically, you know, system one.

   6. LFLex Fridman26:49

      (laughs)

   7. LBLisa Feldman Barrett26:49

      Uh, and, uh, oh, but I also might ex- execute some control where I maybe stop myself from saying something or doing something, and, um, more, in a more reflective way, execute a different action, right? That's system two. The way the brain works though is it's predicting all the time. It's constantly talking to itself, constantly, uh, talking to your body, uh, a- and it's constantly, um, predicting what's going on in the body and what's going on in the world, and making predictions. And, um, the information from your body and from the world really confirm or correct those predictions.

   8. LFLex Fridman27:32

      So, fundamentally, the thing that the brain does most of the time is just predict- like, talking to itself and predicting stuff about the world, not, like, this dumb thing that just senses and responds, senses and responds.

   9. LBLisa Feldman Barrett27:46

      Yeah. So the way to, the way to think about it is like this. You know, your brain is, uh, trapped in a dark silent box-

   10. LFLex Fridman27:52

       Yeah. That's very romantic of you. (laughs)

   11. LBLisa Feldman Barrett27:56

       ... um, which is your skull, and the only information that it receives from your body and from the world, right, is through the senses, through the sense organs, your eyes, your ears. And, um, you have, uh, sense- sensory data that comes from your body, uh, that you're largely unaware of, uh, to your brain, which we call interoceptive, as opposed to exteroceptive, which is the world around you. And... But your brain is receiving sense data continuously, which are the effect of some set of causes. Your brain doesn't know the cause of these sense data. It's only receiving the effects of those causes, which are the data themselves.

   12. LFLex Fridman28:46

       Mm-hmm.

   13. LBLisa Feldman Barrett28:46

       And so your brain has to solve what philosophers call an inverse inference problem. How do you know... When you only receive the effects of something, how do you know what caused those effects? So, when there's a flash of light, or, um, a change in air pressure, or a tug somewhere in your body, how does your brain know what caused those, um, events so that it knows what to do next to keep you alive and well? And the answer is that your brain has one other source of information available to it, which is your past experience. It can reconstitute, in its wiring, um, past experiences, and it can combine those past experiences in novel ways, and so we have lots of names for this. In psychology, we call it memory, we call it perceptual inference, we call it simulation, um, uh, it's also we call it concepts or conceptual knowledge, we call it prediction. Basically, if we were to stop the world right now, stop time, your brain is in a state, and it's representing what it believes is going on in your body and in the world, and it's predicting what will happen next based on past experience, right, probabilistically, what's most likely to happen. And it begins to, um, prepare your action-... and it begins to prepare your, the, it prepare your experience, based... So it's anticipating the sense data it's going to receive, and then when that, those data come in, they either confirm that prediction and your action executes, because the plan's already been made-

   14. LFLex Fridman30:44

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LBLisa Feldman Barrett30:44

       ... or, um, it, uh, or there's some, uh, sense data that your brain didn't predict that's unexpected, and your brain takes it in, we say encodes it. We have a fancy name for that. We call it learning. Your brain learns and it updates its, uh, storehouse of knowledge, which we call an internal model, and, uh, that you, so that you can predict better next time. And it turns out that predicting and correcting, predicting and correcting is a much more metabolically efficient way to run a system than constantly reacting all the time, because if you're constantly reacting, it means you have no... You can't anticipate in any way what's going to happen-

   16. LFLex Fridman31:23

       Mm-hmm.

   17. LBLisa Feldman Barrett31:24

       ... and so the, the amount of uncertainty that you have to deal with is, uh, overwhelming to a nervous system.

   18. LFLex Fridman31:30

       (laughs) Metabolically costly. I like it. (laughs)

   19. LBLisa Feldman Barrett31:32

       And so what is a reflex? A reflex is when your brain doesn't check against the sense data, that the-

   20. LFLex Fridman31:41

       Ah.

   21. LBLisa Feldman Barrett31:41

       ... potential cost to you is so great, maybe because you know your life is threatened, that your brain makes the prediction and executes the action without checking.

   22. LFLex Fridman31:55

       Yeah, so but prediction's still at the core. That's the beautiful vision

7. 31:58 – 37:58

   How the brain evolved

   1. LFLex Fridman31:58

      of the brain. I wonder, from almost an AI perspective, but just computationally, is the brain just mostly a prediction machine then? Like is the perception just a nice little feature added on top, like the, both the, the integration of new perceptual information, I wonder how big of, of an impressive system is that relative to just the big predictor, model constructor?

   2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:25

      Well, I think that we can, we can look to evolution for that, for, uh, one answer, which is that when you go back, you know, 550 million years, give or take, we, you know, the world was populated by creatures, really ruled by creatures without brains. Um, and, um, you know, that's a biological statement, not a political statement.

   3. LFLex Fridman32:48

      (laughs)

   4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:48

      So ruled with creatures-

   5. LFLex Fridman32:49

      You're calling dinosaurs dumb? You're talking about like-

   6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:51

      Oh, no, I'm not talking about dinosaurs, honey.

   7. LFLex Fridman32:53

      Yeah.

   8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:53

      I'm talking way back-

   9. LFLex Fridman32:55

      Way up.

   10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:55

       ... further back than that. Um, really these-

   11. LFLex Fridman32:57

       The animals.

   12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett32:57

       ... they're these little, little, um, creatures called, uh, amphioxus, which is the modern, it's a, or a lancet. That's the modern animal, but it's an animal that scientists believe is very similar to, um, our common, the common ancestor that we share, uh, with invertebrates, um, because, uh, be- basically because of m- uh, the tracing back the molecular genetics in cells. And that animal had no brain. It had some cells that would later turn into a brain, but in that animal, there's no brain. But that animal also had no head, and it had no eyes, and it had no ears, and it had really, really no senses for the most part. It had very, very limited sense of touch. It had an eye spot for, um, not for seeing, but just for, um, in training to circadian rhythm to light and dark, um, and it had no hearing. It had a vestibular cell so that it could keep upright in the water. At the time, approx- we're talking evolutionary scale here, so, you know, give or take some 100 million years or something, but at the time... You know, what are the vertebrate, like when a, when a backbone evolved and a brain evolved, a full brain, that was when a head evolved with sense, with sense organs and when, um, that's when your viscera, like internal systems involved. So the answer I would say is that, um, that senses... Neuros- motor neuroscientists, people who study the control of motor behavior, believe that, um, senses evolved in the service of motor action.

   13. LFLex Fridman34:42

       Mm-hmm.

   14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett34:42

       So the idea is that, like what triggered the, what triggered, what was, what was the big evolutionary change? What was the big pressure, uh, that made it useful to have eyes and ears and a visual system and an auditory system and a brain basically, and you know, and the answer that, um, is, you know, commonly entertained right now is that it was predation, that when at some point an a- an animal evolved that deliberately ate another animal-

   15. LFLex Fridman35:16

       (laughs)

   16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett35:16

       ... and this launched an arms race between predators and prey, and it became very useful to have senses, right? So these, these little amphiox-

   17. LFLex Fridman35:26

       Oh, I see.

   18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett35:27

       These little amphioxi, i- i- you know, don't really have, they, they don't have an en- they're not aware of their environment very much, really. They, um, uh, and so being able to look up ahead and, you know, ask yourself, you know, is the, you know, "Should I eat that or will it eat me?" um, is, is a very useful thing. So the idea, um, is that sense, sense, sense data is not there for consciousness. It didn't evolve for the purposes of consciousness. It didn't evolve for the purposes of experiencing anything. Um, it evolved, uh, in the ser- to be in the service of motor control. However, maybe it's useful. Um, this is why, you know, scientists sometimes, uh, avoid questions about why things evolved, that this is-

   19. LFLex Fridman36:25

       Mm-hmm.

   20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett36:26

       ... the philosophers call this teleology. You might be able to say something about how, uh-... things evolve, but not necessarily why. We don't really know the why. Uh, that's all speculation.

   21. LFLex Fridman36:40

       But the why is kind of nice here. The, the interesting thing is, uh, that was the first element of social interaction is, "Am I gonna eat you or are you gonna eat me?" (laughs) And for that, it's useful to be able to see each other, sense each other. Uh, that's kind of fascinating that, that there was a time when life didn't eat each other. (laughs)

   22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:03

       Or they did by accident, right? So an amphioxus, for example, will, um, it kind of like gyrates in the water and then it plants itself in the sand like a blade of gr- like a living blade of grass-

   23. LFLex Fridman37:17

       Yeah.

   24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:17

       ... and then it just filters-

   25. LFLex Fridman37:18

       Yeah.

   26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:19

       ... l- uh, whatever comes into its mouth, right? So it is, it is eating, but it's not actively hunting.

   27. LFLex Fridman37:25

       Hunting.

   28. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:26

       And when, um, the concentration of food decreases, it, the amphioxus can sense this and so it basically wriggles itself randomly to some other spot which pro- probabilistically will have more food than wherever it is. So it's not really, you know, it's not guiding its actions, um, on the basis of... It's not... We, we would say there's no real intentional action-

   29. LFLex Fridman37:55

       Mm-hmm.

   30. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:56

       ... um, in that, in that, in the traditional sense.

8. 37:58 – 46:51

   Free will

   1. LBLisa Feldman Barrett37:58

   2. LFLex Fridman37:58

      Speaking of intentional action, and if the brain is pre- if prediction is indeed a core component of the brain, let me ask you a question that scientists also hate is, uh, about free will.

   3. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:11

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman38:11

      So, uh, how does, uh... Do you think about free will much? H- how does that fit into this, into your view of the brain? Why does it feel like we make decisions in this world?

   5. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:25

      This is a hard que- we scientists hate this 'cause it's a hard, it's a hard question.

   6. LFLex Fridman38:28

      Yeah.

   7. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:28

      We don't know the answer to it.

   8. LFLex Fridman38:29

      Have you taken a side? (laughs)

   9. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:30

      I think I have.

   10. LFLex Fridman38:31

       Do we have free will?

   11. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:31

       I think I have taken a side, but it, it... I don't put a lot of stock in my own intuitions or anybody's intuitions about the cause of things, right? Our ex- one thing we know about the brain for sure is that the brain creates experiences for us. Our, my brain creates experiences for me, your brain creates experiences for you in a way that lures you to believe that those experiences actually reveals the way that it works.

   12. LFLex Fridman38:56

       Right.

   13. LBLisa Feldman Barrett38:56

       But it doesn't. So the...

   14. LFLex Fridman38:59

       So you don't trust your own intuition about- (laughs)

   15. LBLisa Feldman Barrett39:01

       Not really.

   16. LFLex Fridman39:02

       ... about free will? (laughs)

   17. LBLisa Feldman Barrett39:02

       Not really. No, I mean, no. But, but I am also somewhat persuaded by, you know, I think Dan Dennett wrote at, at one point like, um, uh, you know, the philosopher Dan Dennett wrote at one point that, um, it, it's... I c- I can't say it as eloquently as him, but it... People obviously have free will. They are obviously making choices. So it's, you know... And so there is this observation that we're not robots and we can do some things like a little more sophisticated than an amphioxus. So, um, so here's what I would say. I would say that your predictions, your internal model that's running right now, right? That your ability to understand the sounds that I'm making and attach them to ideas is based on the fact that you have years of experience knowing what these sounds mean in a particular statistical, uh, pattern, right?

   18. LFLex Fridman40:00

       Mm-hmm.

   19. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:01

       I mean, that's how you can understand the words that are coming out of my...

   20. LFLex Fridman40:05

       Mouth?

   21. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:06

       Right. I think we did this once before too, didn't we? When we were...

   22. LFLex Fridman40:09

       I, I don't know. I would have to access my memory module.

   23. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:12

       I think when I was in your, when I...

   24. LFLex Fridman40:14

       The class thing?

   25. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:14

       Yeah, I think we did it just like that, actually. So bravo.

   26. LFLex Fridman40:18

       Wow.

   27. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:19

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman40:19

       I have to go look, look back to the tape.

   29. LBLisa Feldman Barrett40:21

       Yeah. Anyways-

   30. LFLex Fridman40:22

       (laughs)
9. 46:51 – 59:23

   Is anything real?

   1. LFLex Fridman46:51

      What about the other thing you talk about? You've mentioned about sensory perception as a thing that like is just you have to infer about the sources of the thing that you have perceived through your senses. S- so, uh, let me ask the- another ridiculous question. Is- is anything real at all? Like how do we know it's real? How do we make sense of the fact that just like you said, there's this brain sitting alone in the darkness trying to perceive the world? How do we know that the world is out there-

   2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:26

      I-

   3. LFLex Fridman47:26

      ... to be perceived?

   4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:27

      Yeah. So I don't think that you should be asking questions like that-

   5. LFLex Fridman47:30

      Yeah.

   6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:31

      ... without passing a joint.

   7. LFLex Fridman47:32

      Right. No, for sure.

   8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:33

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman47:33

      I actually did-

   10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:34

       But- yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman47:34

       ... before th- this, so I apologize. Yeah.

   12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:36

       Okay. No, wait, well, that's okay.

   13. LFLex Fridman47:37

       (laughs)

   14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:37

       For- you apologized for not sharing.

   15. LFLex Fridman47:38

       Yeah.

   16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:38

       That's okay.

   17. LFLex Fridman47:39

       (laughs)

   18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett47:39

       So, I mean, here's what I would say. What I would say is that the reason why we can be pretty sure that there's a there there, is that the- the structure of the information in the world, what we call statistical regularities in sights and sounds and so on, and the structure of the information that comes from your body, it's not random stuff. There's a structure to it. There's a- a spatial structure and a temporal structure, and that spatial and temporal structure wires your brain. So an infant brain is not a miniature adult brain. It's a brain that is waiting for wiring instructions from the world, and it must receive those wiring instructions to develop in a typical way. So for example, when a newborn is born, when a newborn is born? When a- when a baby is born, um, the baby can't see very well because the visual system in that baby's brain is not complete.... the, the retina of your eye, which actually is part of your brain, has to be stimulated with photons of light. If it's not, the baby won't develop normally, the- to be able to see in a neurotypical way. Same thing is true for hearing. The same thing is true really for all your senses. So, the point is that, um, that the physical world, the sense data from the physical world wires your brain so that you have an internal model of that world so that your brain can predict well to keep you alive and well, and allow you to thrive.

   19. LFLex Fridman49:19

       That's fascinating that the brain is waiting for very specific kind of a set of instructions from the world. Like, not- not the specific, but a very specific kind of instructions.

   20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett49:31

       Yeah. So, you- scientists call it expectable input.

   21. LFLex Fridman49:35

       Right.

   22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett49:35

       The brain needs some input in order to develop normally.

   23. LFLex Fridman49:39

       Yeah.

   24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett49:39

       And s- we're- and we are genetically, you know, we, as I say in the book, we- we have the kind of nature that requires nurture.

   25. LFLex Fridman49:48

       Hmm.

   26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett49:48

       We- we can't develop normally without sense input, sensory input from the world and from the body, and what's really interesting about humans and some other animals too, but really seriously in humans, is the input that we need is not just physical. It also social. We, in order for an- an- an infant, a human infant to develop normally, that infant needs eye contact, touch. It needs certain types of smells. It needs to be cuddled. It needs... Right? So, um, without social input, the brain, it's- that- that infant's brain will not wire itself in a neurotypical way. And again, I would say the- there are lots of, um, cultural patterns of caring for an infant. It's not like the infant has to be cared for in one way.

   27. LFLex Fridman50:49

       Mm-hmm.

   28. LBLisa Feldman Barrett50:49

       Um, whatever the social environment is for an infant, um, that it, will- will be reflected in that infant's, um, internal model. So we have lots of different cultures, lots of different ways of rearing children, um, and that's an advantage for our species, although we don't always experience it that way. That is an advantage for our species. Um, but if you, if you just, you know, feed and water a baby without all the extra social doodads, um, what you get is a profoundly impaired, uh, human.

   29. LFLex Fridman51:25

       Yeah, but nevertheless, you're kind of saying that the physical reality has a, has a consistent thing throughout that keeps feeding these, uh, set of sensory information that our brains are constructed for, but...

   30. LBLisa Feldman Barrett51:43

       Yeah, the cool thing though is that if you change the consistency, if you change the statistical regularities, so prediction error, your brain can learn it. It's expensive for your brain to learn it, and it takes a while to- to- for the brain to get really automated with it, but, you know, you, um, had a wonderful, uh, conversation with David Eagleman who just published a book-
10. 59:23 – 1:05:11

    Dreams

    1. LBLisa Feldman Barrett59:23

       is it?

    2. LFLex Fridman59:23

       Yeah, like what... You know, a lot of people ask me, I've... Uh, am I allowed to say this? I think I'm allowed to say this. Uh, I've eaten shrooms a couple of times, but I haven't gone the full... I'm talking to a few researchers in psychedelics. It's an interesting scientifically place. Like, what is the portal you're entering when you take psychedelics? Or another way to ask is, like, dreams? What are-

    3. LBLisa Feldman Barrett59:45

       Yeah. So let me tell you what I think, which is based on nothing.

    4. LFLex Fridman59:48

       (laughs)

    5. LBLisa Feldman Barrett59:48

       Like, this is based on my, like... Right? So I don't-

    6. LFLex Fridman59:51

       Your intuition. What's your-

    7. LBLisa Feldman Barrett59:52

       It's based on my, it's based on m- my... I'm guessing now, um, based on what I do know, I would say, but I think that... Well, think about what happens... So you're running... Your brain's running this internal model.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:00:04

       Right.

    9. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:00:04

       And it's all outside of your awareness for the... You see the, you feel the products, but you don't, you don't sense the... You have no awareness of the mechanics of it, right?

    10. LFLex Fridman1:00:13

        Right.

    11. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:00:13

        It's going on all the time. Um, and so one thing that's going on all the time that you're completely unaware of, is that, um, when your brain... Your brain is basically asking itself, figuratively speaking, not literally, right? Like, "How i- the sen- give- the last time I was in this sensory array with this stuff going on in my body and I... And that, this chain of events which just occurred, what did I do next? What did I feel next? What did I see next?" And so... It doesn't come up with one answer, it comes up with a distribution of it, possible answers, and then there has to be some selection process.And so you have a, a network in your brain, a s- sub-network in your brain, a population of neurons that helps to choose. It's not... I'm not talking about a homunculus in your brain or anything silly like that. Um, uh, this is not the soul, it's not the center of yourself or anything like that, but there is, um, i- um, uh, a set of neurons that weighs the probabilities, uh, um, um, and, and helps to select, uh, n- or narrow the field. Okay? And that, that network is working all the time. It's actually called the control network, the executive control network, or you can call it a frontoparietal, because the regions of the brain that make it up are in the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe. There are also parts that belong to the sub-cortical parts of your brain. It doesn't really matter. The point is th- that there is this network and it is working all the time. Whether or not you feel in control, whether or not you feel like you're expending effort doesn't really matter. It's on all the time, except when you sleep. When you sleep, it's, it's a little bit relaxed.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:02:02

        (laughs)

    13. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:02:03

        And so think about what's happening when you sleep. When you sleep, the ext- the external world recedes, the sense data from... So basically your model becomes a little bit the tethers from the world are loosened. And this network which is involved in, you know, maybe weeding out unrealistic things is a little bit quiet. So use... Your dreams are really your internal model that's unconstrained by the immediate world except... So you can do things that you can't do in real life in your dreams, right? You can fly. Like I, for example, when I fly on my back in a dream, I'm much faster than when I fly on my front. Don't ask me why. I don't know, but...

    14. LFLex Fridman1:02:53

        When you're laying on your back in your dream-

    15. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:02:55

        No. When I'm in my dream and flying in a dream, I am much faster flyer in the air.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:03:00

        You fly often?

    17. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:02

        Hmm, not often but I...

    18. LFLex Fridman1:03:03

        You, you talk about it like you f- I don't think I've flown for many years.

    19. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:06

        Well, you must try it.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:03:08

        I've, I've f- I've, uh, flown, I've fallen.

    21. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:11

        That's scary.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:03:12

        Yeah. But you've flown? You're talking about like-

    23. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:14

        Yeah, I fly.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:03:14

        ... airplane?

    25. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:15

        I fly in my dreams.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:03:16

        Oh, that's impressive.

    27. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:16

        And I'm way faster, right?

    28. LFLex Fridman1:03:18

        On your back?

    29. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:03:18

        On my back. Way faster. Um, now you can say, "Well, you know, you never flew in your life." Right. It's conceptual combination.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:03:25

        Right.
11. 1:05:11 – 1:30:40

    Emotions are human-constructed concepts

    1. LFLex Fridman1:05:11

       Let's talk about emotion a little bit if we could. Emotion comes up often and I have never spoken with anybody who, um, who has a clarity about emotion from a biological and neuroscience perspective that you do. And I'm not sure I fully know how to... as a, as a... I mention this way too much, but as somebody who was born in the Soviet Union and romanticizes basically everything, talks about love non-stop, you know, emotion is a... I don't know what to make of it.

    2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:05:49

       (laughs)

    3. LFLex Fridman1:05:49

       Uh, I don't know what... I, I... So maybe, uh, let's just try to talk about it. I mean, from a neuroscience perspective, we talked about a little bit last time, your book covers it, how emotions are made, but what are some misconceptions we writers of poetry, we romanticizing humans have about emotion that we should, uh, move away from if we're to think about emotion from both a scientific and an engineering perspective?

    4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:06:20

       Yeah. So there is a common view of emotion in the West. The caricature of that view is that, um, you know, we have an inner beast, right? Your limbic system, your, your inner lizard. Um, we have an inner beast and that comes baked into the brain at birth. So you've got circuits for anger, sadness, fear. It's interesting that they all have English names, these circuits are-

    5. LFLex Fridman1:06:47

       (laughs) Yeah.

    6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:06:48

       But, um, the, the... And they're there and they're triggered by things in the world and, um, then they cause you to do and say and...... thing, you know. So when your fear circuit is triggered, you widen your eyes, you, um, gasp, your, uh, you know, heart rate goes up, you prepare to flee or, um, uh, to freeze. Um, and these are, these are modal responses. They're not the only responses that you give, but on average, they're the prototypical responses. That's the view, and, um, that's the view of emotion in the law. That's the view, um, you know, that emotions are these profoundly unhelpful things that are obligatory, kind of like reflexes. Um, the problem with that view is that it doesn't comport to the evidence, um, and it doesn't really matter. The evidence actually lines up beautifully with each other. It just doesn't line up with that view, and it doesn't matter whether you're measuring people's faces, facial movements, or you're measuring their body movements, or you're measuring their peripheral physiology, or you're measuring their brains, or their voices, or whatever. Pick any s- any, um, output that you want to measure and, you know, any system you want to measure, and you don't really find strong evidence for this. And I say this as somebody who, who not only has reviewed really thousands of articles and run, you know, big meta analyses, which are statistical summaries of, of published papers, but also as someone who has sent teams of researchers to, um, small-scale, uh, cultures, uh, you know, remote cultures, which are very different from, uh, urban, uh, large-scale cultures like ours. Um, and one culture that we visited, and I say "we" euphemistically because I, I myself didn't go because I only had two research permits, and I gave them to my students because I felt like it was better for them to have that experience and more formative for them to have that experience, but I was in contact with them every day by satellite phone, and, um, this was, um, to visit the, um, Hadza hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, who are not, um, an ancient people. They're a modern culture, but they live in circumstances, um, hunting and foraging, circumstances that, um, are very similar, in similar conditions to our ancestors', uh, uh, hunting-gathering ancestors, uh, w- when expressions of emotion were supposed to have evolved-

    7. LFLex Fridman1:09:34

       Mm-hmm.

    8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:09:34

       ... at least by one view of... Okay. So, uh, you know, for many years, I was sort of struggling with, um, this set of observations, right, which is that I feel emotion and I see, I perceive emotion in other people, but scientists can't find a single marker, a single biomarker, not a single individual measure or pattern of measures, that will- can predict how someone- what kind of emotional state they're in.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:10:06

       Mm-hmm.

    10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:10:07

        How could that possibly be? How g- how can you possibly make sense of those two things? And through a lot of reading and a lot of- and immersing myself in different literatures, I came to the hypothesis that the brain is constructing these instances out of more basic ingredients. So when I tell you that the brain- when I suggest to you that what your brain is doing is making a prediction, and it's asking itself, figuratively speaking, "The last time I was in this situation and this, you know, physical state, what did I do next? What did I see next? What did I hear next?" It's basically asking, "What in my past is similar to the present?"

    11. LFLex Fridman1:10:57

        Mm-hmm.

    12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:10:59

        Things which are similar to one another are called a category. A group of things which are similar to one another is a category, and a mental representation of a category is a concept. So your brain is constructing categories or concepts on the fly continuously. So if you really want to understand what a brain is doing, you don't- using machine learning, like classification models, is not going to help you because the brain doesn't classify. It's doing category construction.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:11:29

        Mm-hmm.

    14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:11:31

        And the categories change, or, or you could say it's doing concept construction. It's using past experience to conjure a concept, which is a prediction.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:11:41

        Mm-hmm.

    16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:11:43

        And if it's using past experiences of emotion, then it's constructing an emotion concept. Your concept will be the content of it, is, is, um, changes depending on the situation that you're in. So for example, if your brain uses past experiences of anger that you have learned, either because somebody t- labeled them for you, taught them to you, you observed them, uh, in movies, and so on, in one situation, could be very different from your concept of- for anger than another situation. And this is how anger, instances of anger, are what we call a population of variable instances. Sometimes when you're angry, you scowl. Sometimes when you're angry, you might smile.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:12:38

        Mm-hmm.

    18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:12:39

        Sometimes when you're angry, you might cry. Sometimes your heart rate will go up, it will go down, it will stay the same. It depends on what action you're about to take because the way predict- And I should say, the idea that physiology is yoked to action is a very old idea in, in, uh, the study of the peripheral nervous system. That's been known for really decades. And so...If you look at what the brain is doing, if you just look at the anatomy and- and you- what- here's the hypothesis that you would- that you would come up with. And I can go into the details. (smacks lips) I've published these details in- in scientific papers, and they also appear somewhat in, um, How Emotions Are Made, my first book. They are not in the, you know, Seven and a Half Lessons, because that book is- is really not pitched at that level of explanation.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:13:32

        Right.

    20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:13:33

        It's just giving... It's really just a set of little essays. Um, but the evidence... But what I'm about to say is actually based on- on- on scientific evidence. When your brain begins to pre- make- form a prediction, the first thing it's doing is it's making a prediction of how to change the internal systems of your body, your heart, your cardiovascular system, the control of your heart, control of your lungs, right? A f- a- a flush of- of cortisol, which is not a stress hormone, it's a hormone that gets glucose into your bloodstream very fast, because your brain is predicting you need to do something metabolically, um, uh, expensive. And so- so either that means either move or learn.

    21. LFLex Fridman1:14:23

        Mm-hmm.

    22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:14:23

        Okay? And so your brain is preparing your body, the internal systems of your body, to execute some actions, to move in some way. And the... And then it infers, based on those motor predictions and what we call viscera motor predictions, meaning the- the m- the changes in the viscera that your brain is preparing to, um, to execute. Um, i- your brain makes an inference about what you will sense-

    23. LFLex Fridman1:14:59

        Mm-hmm.

    24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:14:59

        ... based on those motor movements. So, your experience of the world and your experience of your own body are a consequence of those predictions, those concepts. When your brain makes a concept for emotion, it's constructing an instance of that emotion.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:15:21

        And-

    26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:15:21

        That is how emotions are made.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:15:24

        And those concepts load in... The predictions that are made include, um, contents inside the body, contents outside the body. I mean, it includes other humans, so just this construction of a concept includes s- th- variables that are much richer than just some sort of, um, simple notion.

    28. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:15:51

        Yeah, so our colloquial notion of a concept where, um, i- you know, um, w- where I say, "Well, what's a concept of a bird?" And then you list a set of features off to me, that's- that's people's understanding, you know, typically of what a concept is. But if you go, uh, into the literature in, um, cognitive science, what you'll see is that the way that scientists have understood what a concept is has really changed over the years. So, people used to think about a concept as, um... Philosophers and scientists used to think about a concept as a dictionary definition for a category. So, there's a set of things which are similar out in the world, and, um, uh, your concept for- for that category is a dictionary des- definition of the features-

    29. LFLex Fridman1:16:39

        Right.

    30. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:16:39

        ... the necessary and sufficient features-
12. 1:30:40 – 1:39:16

    Are women more emotional than men?

    1. LFLex Fridman1:30:40

       So, there's the difference between cultures. Let me, uh, open another door I'm not sure I want to open, but, uh, difference between men and women. Is there, um, difference between the emotional lives of those two categories of biological systems?

    2. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:30:58

       So, here's what I would say, you know, we did a series of studies, um, uh, in the 1990s, where we asked men and women to tell us about their emotional lives and women described themselves as much more emotional than men. They believed that they were more emotional than men, and men agreed.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:31:16

       (laughs)

    4. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:31:17

       Women are much more emotional than men.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:31:18

       Okay.

    6. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:31:19

       Okay? And then-We gave them little handheld computers. These were little Hewlett-Packard computers. They fit in the palm of your hand, couple of pou- they weighed a couple of pounds, so this was like pre-PalmPilot even, like this was, you know, 1990s and like early. And, um, we, um, asked them... We would, you know, ping them like 10 times a day and just ask them to report how they were feeling, which is called experience sampling. So we experience sampled and, um, and then at the end... And then we looked at their reports and what we found is that men and women basically didn't differ, and there were some people who were really... had many more instances of emotion. So they were, you know, um, they were treading, uh, water in a tumultuous sea of emotion.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:32:16

       (laughs)

    8. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:32:16

       And then there were other people who were like floating tranquilly, you know, in a lake-

    9. LFLex Fridman1:32:20

       (laughs) Yeah.

    10. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:32:21

        ... um, it was really not perturbed very often and-

    11. LFLex Fridman1:32:23

        Yeah.

    12. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:32:23

        ... and everyone in between. But there were no difference between men and women. And the really interesting thing is at the end of the sampling period, we asked people, um, "So reflect over the past two weeks and tell us..." so, you know, we've been now pinging people like again and again and again, right? "So tell us h- how emotional do you think you are?" No change from the beginning. So men and women believe that they are... they believe that they are different и when they are looking at other people, they make different inferences about emotion. If a man... if a man is scowling, like if you and I were together and some- so somebody's watching this.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:33:04

        Uh-huh.

    14. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:04

        Okay? And, um-

    15. LFLex Fridman1:33:06

        Hi.

    16. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:06

        Yeah. Hey. We w- we were saying hey.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:33:08

        (laughs)

    18. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:08

        Hey, hi, yeah, hi. Um-

    19. LFLex Fridman1:33:10

        By the way, people love it when you look at the camera. (laughs)

    20. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:14

        Um, if you and I make exactly the same set of facial movements, when people look at you, both men and women look at you, they are more likely to think, "Oh, he's reacting to the situation." And when they look at me, they'll say, "Oh, she's having an emotion." She's-

    21. LFLex Fridman1:33:35

        Yeah.

    22. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:35

        ... you know. Yeah. And I wrote about this actually, um, uh, right before the 2016 election.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:33:46

        You know what? Maybe I- I could confess. Let me try to carefully confess.

    24. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:33:51

        But you are really gonna.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:33:53

        Yeah. That, um, that when I... that- that there is an element when I see Hillary Clinton, that there was something annoying about her to me. And I... just that feeling and then I tried to reduce that to, "What- what is that?" Because I think the same attributes that are annoying about her, when I see in other people wouldn't be annoying. So I- I was trying to understand what is it because it- it certainly does feel like that concept that I've constructed in my mind.

    26. LBLisa Feldman Barrett1:34:30

        Well, I'll tell you that I think... well, let me just say that, um, that- that what you would predict about, for example, the performance of the two of them in the debates, and I wrote an op-ed for The New York Times actually, um, before the second debate, and it- it played out really pretty much as I thought that it would o- o- based on research. It's not like I'm like a great fortune teller or anything. It's just I was just applying the research, which was that when a woman, um... a woman's, um... people make internal attributions, it's called. They- they infer that the facial movements and body posture and vocalizations of a woman reflect her inner state, but for men, they're more likely to assume that they reflect his response to the situation. It doesn't say-

Episode duration: 2:20:16