Modern WisdomThe Neuroscience Of The 7 Deadly Sins | Dr Jack Lewis | Modern Wisdom Podcast 182
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,259 words- 0:00 – 0:37
Intro
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Be careful who you envy because quite often the people that people typically envy project success and that everything's great, but actually behind the scenes, are they really great? Is life really as gravy when they're back home? Quite often it's not the case, but we don't look into the backstory behind these people. There's loads and loads of people in the public eye who, when they roll out on stage, when they roll out in the studio in front of the lights and the TV cameras, they put, they put on a face that just exudes success. But actually behind the scenes, they've got a crushing, horrible existence, um, that they carefully hide from everyone. (airplane flying)
- 0:37 – 2:31
Why humans “sin”: instincts that become antisocial in excess
- CWChris Williamson
We're talking about sin today, all the, all the sins. How are you? Are you sinful today? Are you feeling sinful?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
No, I've been, I've been pretty virtuous, to be honest. I mean, lockdown sort of, uh, stops people going out and doing things that might get them in trouble, so I've been boringly virtuous.
- CWChris Williamson
How sinful can you be during a pandemic, you know?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs) Yeah, I mean that, uh, if you, if you take the drop-in A&E, um, visits, uh, it's just, you, you let, you can't even hurt yourself if you stay indoors.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You put those little foam cups on all the sharp edges in your house.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
And you make sure that you take the steps carefully. That's it.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
And particularly during the period where the DIY shops were closed, it's like, I mean, how's anyone gonna chop their finger off on a bank holiday if they can't go and buy a scalpel?
- CWChris Williamson
Limes.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Not a scalpel, a standing- a standing lime.
- CWChris Williamson
Cutting limes for mojitos, that's how.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That's how you do it. Um, so talking about sin-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
...The Science of Sin, your new book.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Science of Sin: Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn't.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So why, why do we do the things that we know that we shouldn't?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Because we're human.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. I-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Too short an answer? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
No, I mean, it's just, it's just a, it's a longer book than that.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's, there's loads of words, loads of pages in this.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
No, it's, um, it's, you know what? I'm usually very wordy, so I've, I've, my New Year's resolution is to be more concise. That was perhaps too concise. No, so h- the thing is humans are driven by instincts, um, amongst other things, and those instincts, if you take the ones that are covered by the seven deadly sins, the important thing to remember is if you were to abolish any of those seven things, it, it would be curtains for humanity. We need a modicum of all
- 2:31 – 14:14
Ancient wisdom vs modern science: keeping the ‘pearls’ and discarding the chaff
- JLDr Jack Lewis
of the seven deadly sins, um, in, in order to function properly as individuals, as communities. It's just when th- any of those seven categories of behavior go to excess that they are, uh, at its core, antisocial. Now, I'm, I'm not a religious person. Um, I spent a lot of time sort of singing hymns at school because both my primary and secondary school were Church of England, but I, I didn't really believe a word of it. I just thought, you know, I, I was always more inclined to sort of the scientific approach. Let's look at the evidence. If there's evidence to support it, you know, more evidence to support it than to refute a hypothesis, then you, you, you know, you believe accordingly. But with, I don't know, there was so much stuff in the Bible that was sort of clearly outdated that I thought, "How can people still buy into this?" Like, I realize it gives people a lot of, um, hope and it gives them a sense of community, but, but the, the concept of believing like a literal interpretation of the Bible in a post-enlightenment time, it just seemed bonkers.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But I, I've, I've, the more I looked into it, having sort of got my PhD in neuroscience, and scanned a lot of brains, and sort of got much clearer on what we do and don't know in terms of human knowledge, m- modern wisdom, um, I realized that actually there's an awful lot of stuff in those ancient books of religion, Bible and, and others, um, which you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you don't j- for me personally, just because I don't believe in the supernatural doesn't mean that there's not something to be learned if you read between the lines.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
And that, and that's what I was sort of correcting the error of my ways.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so interesting. I got this quote from Donald Kingsbury which hits the nail on the head there I think. "Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was."
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm. And, and that reminds me of a friend of mine who's, uh, she's an amazing woman. She's like an engineer and a designer and she sort of designs healing spaces, not in a hippy way. I'm talking about psychiatric institutions. Build the buildings and the parkland, the open air, so that it fosters healing rather than a lot of, you know, let's say Bedlam hundreds of years ago, it was the opposite of a place that promoted healing. And after, so, so she's doing a PhD in Sweden. Four and a half years into a five-year PhD, she realized that all of the answers had been, uh, reached by the ancient Greeks. So if only she'd been a classicist and read the right ancient Greek books, all of her, what she thought was modern discoveries using the latest cutting edge research techniques, it was already there. It's just, who's interested in history? We're all interested in the future and what technology can do.
- CWChris Williamson
Bro.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's bonkers.
- CWChris Williamson
That is, that is crazy. It is that, the Lindy effect, the fact that we always presume that newer is better and, um, especially given the fact that so much of our time is spent on like Instagram stories or Facebook stories or whatever.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That is content which has been produced within the last 24 hours.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the least Lindy platform like by design. Um, but yeah, so-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But also, but also the fact that when you're consuming information so rapidly that you're not rea- y- y- you're so eager to get onto the next thing because it's more about quantity than quality w- when you consume social media, um-You're not even focusing on what you're saying. Like, you get to the end of the paragraph and you go, "What? Another 10 paragraphs? No, screw it. I've got enough. I'm going to move on to the next thing."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But it means, it means everyone's knowledge is superficial and rapid, and people don't bother to go deeper and deeper to get a thorough... a more thorough understanding. Um, but anyway, we can't fix the whole world.
- CWChris Williamson
No, we... But we can explain to people about seven deadly sins today. So-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... do, what... Do we want to do them? Is there some part of us that wants to do these, these capital vices, which is the other term that you have. You've got the seven deadly sins or capital vices, as you call them.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, why aren't we the masters of our own behavior?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Hmm. Why aren't we the masters of our own behavior? Pa- it's partly because finding the right path in life is a, is a balance. Like, there's always pros and cons, there's always pluses and minuses, there's always benefits and risks. And each individual's capacity to pick a path which finds that Goldilocks zone, that sweet spot where you're doing everything in moderation and you're not letting anything go to the extreme, it, it is different. Like, everyone's capacity to do that is... Well, decision-making, in general, is driven by... You don't remember the last 100 times you made a similar decision, but on a sort of subconscious basis, there's a trace of whether it worked out well or badly when you went for the risky option that, that promised a high return compared to the low-risk option that promised a low return. And so quite often, finding that balance between s- sort of giving that urge for immediate gratification, um, a little bit of airtime, but not too much, and, and on average, always trying to go for what's best in the long run. Y- you can't do both.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Like quite often... So let's say... The, the best example, I think, is gluttony, right? Because gluttony a-... Gluttony is overeating, over-drinking. Greed is just wanting more of anything, no matter how much you've got already. And that gluttony thing was an absolute design feature back in, you know, hundre- hundreds of thousands of years of, of human history. If, when food was available, you stuffed your face and built up fatty deposits, it meant that when the inevitable lean times came, where food was unavailable for weeks and weeks and months and months, you know, this scrabble for existence was tough. We're, we're very pampered in this day and age. Under conditions of prevailing food scarcity, you want to get fat in the... at, at harvest time so that you can survive through the winter, right? And so, it, it is actually a logical thing to do, to, to, to shove everything in your face. And instinctively, we love, like, fast-release carbs, sugary, bready, cakey stuff. We love fatty stuff. Of course, we do. But we're not designed to eat it every day. Our, our metabolism can't cope with eating that stuff every day. And then you... So you've got the forces of advertising saying, "Hey, don't buy all that expensive, kind of nutritious food. It's much more affordable," let's appeal to the cost-effectiveness, "to get a family meal. You know, get, get a bucket of fried chicken. Get, you know... Get in the habit, get trained in the habit of eating takeaways or, or, or sort of microwave meals every single day without fail." Now, a little bit of that stuff is fine, but doing it every day screws you up. So the instinct to overeat used to save lives, in that people could live for long enough to reach sexual maturity, to have sex with someone, pass their genes on to the next generation. Like, by hook or by crook, every single one of your listeners, you and me, we have an unbroken chain of ancestors who managed to live for long enough-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... to reach sexual maturity and shag and have a baby. It's, it's, it's astonishing. Without that propensity to overeat, that wouldn't have happened.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
So, so those humans who didn't have that propensity to overeat, they didn't li-... You know, their ancestral line petered out.
- CWChris Williamson
They were out-competed, yeah.
- 14:14 – 19:25
Why the sins are socially ‘deadly’: friendship, feedback loops, and avoiding echo chambers
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, a- and then you realize, you're totally correct. Like, just read a bit of Seneca. Like Seneca and Epictetus had that sorted out, mate, or whatever it might be. So, uh, what I find really interesting about the seven deadly sins and the way that you put it together was that you said it's common categories of human behavior that cause people to fall out. And what that suggests is that if you were like an island, if it was just Chris or Jack, and you went through your, some of these sins, that it wouldn't cause as much of a problem. But when there's other people around that increase friction, the work between you and those around you that it, it kind of magnifies the problem. Is that-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the correct way to look at it?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
I'm totally with you. I think that's a very reasonable thing to say. The one thing, the one caveat is no man is an island, and I think what we don't realize is the degree to which friends aren't just nice to have, they are absolutely essential to our well-being. And that's not about having 500, you know, friends on social media. Y- you can have one or two really reliable mates that you can talk things over with. Like, the human brain generates lots of hypotheses, lots of potential explanations for why things are happening. Some of those notions absolutely start raving bonkers, and you need your mates and your family members or the people around you to reflect back on whether w- the parts of what you're saying then add up and make sense in their objective view, and the parts of what you're saying that are just pie-in-the-sky, you know, bonkers. And that's what people who are socially isolated don't have that, and they end up doing their head in with getting hung up on some of those notions that go round and round in their head. Confirmation bias, they've got no one to sort of push back and, and, and say, "No, no, no. I d- I disagree with that." Like, that's the most useful thing someone can do. It, wh- when, when they honestly say to you, "I disagree completely for the following reasons."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Because it makes you aware of a different perspective that we simply... It's very hard to have multiple perspectives when you're looking out of the same pair of eyes and listening through the same pair of ears each day. So, those other people in your life help you to go through all of your notions and beliefs, and sort of, well, hopefully, so long as you're not in an echo chamber of people who all think the same thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... um, give you a bit more balance. And, and it's the same thing with this modern wisdom, ancient wisdom. There's a lot of nonsense written in the ancient wisdom. The nice thing about looking at it from the context of modern science is it helps you to separate the wheat from the chaff, you know? It helps you focus in on those pearls of wisdom that were bang on the money. Whereas, like, Plato thought that the brain was just sort of, you know, the, the... They thought that all, the spirit was in the heart and the brain was just a radiator for losing heat, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
So they might, they might have been good at philosophy, but they got their anatomy completely upside down.
- CWChris Williamson
Anatomy, yeah. They needed to do a little bit of work on that, didn't they?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
So, what I'm saying is like we can't just rely on ancient wisdom, but, but looking at it through the lens of modern science, I think you can start, you know, working out what bits to focus on and, and, and really put your weight behind, uh, and what bits just to, just to let, just to let go, ignore it. Like, I, I worry about people who worry about the fate of their life, sorry, fate of their soul in the afterlife. Because there's a lot of people who, you know, like the Catholic guilt thing, um, people beat themselves up. People are hard on themselves because the expectations of certain people in soci- in the society that, that they're raised in hold them to such, like, high standards, impossibly high standards. Like, the concept of being able to steer clear of the seven deadly sins your whole life is, is, is poppycock, because they, they are driven by fundamental basic human instincts. Like, you know, they're related to the very fundamental instincts that are involved in the drive s- for survival. So, some people are gonna do well at being disciplined, some people are gonna be bad at being disciplined. But I would argue those people who are overly disciplined are missing out on life. They're, they're, they're postponing everything for the afterlife, which may or may not exist. So, why not just make a heaven of life on Earth?
- CWChris Williamson
It's a very good argument, man. I don't know. I mean, increasingly, as I get exposed to books like yours, uh, and more evolutionary psychology, and as I start to wrap my head around how...... we operate and why we are the way we are. Um, the concept of who, but what is natural to us seems to become more and more both clear and muddy at the same time.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Does that make sense? Like you-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you don't, when you start to strip away ego and predisposition and your, um, the way that you've dealt with your trauma and your, uh, genetic heritage and all this sort of stuff, when you start to strip that away, you're like, "Well, hang on, how much of this do I do before I'm no longer me? But how much of that do I need to get rid of to be more of me?" And again-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... Seneca's got this concept which is called the virtuous mean and it's, uh, not a vice of excess nor a vice of, uh, uh...
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Too little?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, whatever under, like, not enough. And-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Denial or something. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That middle section.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- 19:25 – 25:19
Pride as healthy reinforcement vs pride as narcissism (the ‘gateway’ vice)
- CWChris Williamson
That middle bit, right? That's what we're, we're kind of touching on today. So let's, let's get into them. Pride first thing. Pride.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't pride a good thing? I want to have pri-... I've done something well, shouldn't have-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
You should be proud of yourself.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, you should be proud of yourself.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
What a great podcast.
- CWChris Williamson
So w- why is it, why is it, why is pride a sin?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's confusing, isn't it? Um, "You should take more pride in your work." How many times were we told that at school? Um, so, so, so the positive side of pride is it's, it's a natural human emotion, kicks in during childhood, and it rewards, uh, an infant feels proud of themselves when they do what mommy or daddy tell them to do. And then when they get positive feedback and they get smiles and claps and, you know, like body language and vocalizations that make the kid realize that they've done good, they beam with pride because it's reinforcing. When, when, when the world tells you that what you've done is good, um, in moderation, it's good because it makes you more likely to repeat that positive behavior. But the trouble with pride is when you take it to excess, you end up with essentially narcissism. The, the, the sin of pride, what, what the ancient religious thinkers thought was negative, bad about people who are overly prideful, is almost indistinguishable from what science and medicine these days thinks of as narcissism. So it's things like feeling like you don't need other people, you're completely self-efficacious. It's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, I don't need anyone else. Uh, being very vain, um, thinking that you're better than other people at pretty much everything, even in the sort of face of stark evidence to the contrary. You just, you just can't... you can't believe that you're not just brilliant at everything. Um, so the average narcissistic person is the kind of person that's really going to rub other people up the wrong way. Like they're always drawing attention to themselves, um, and a lot of narcissism seems to be to do with, uh, poor self-esteem and, and that can either come from neglectful parenting or, or overly attentive helicopter parenting, both of which can lead to what, what psychologists describe as an undifferentiated sense of self. Like so their sense of self doesn't develop properly early on in life, which means they don't really know where... If you take the helicopter parenting example, the kid doesn't know where they end and their parents begin. There's no dividing line. They just, they... because they have their parents' views forced on them the whole time, they don't know what they think. They just mimic parrot fashion what the parent would say in all situations and carry on doing that through life. So those kind of narcissists need to work on that to sort of basically stand on their own two feet, ego wise, if, if you like. Um, and, and although they seem, narcissists seem like they're so full of themselves, they're constantly looking for, uh, reassurance, positive feedback from the rest of the world, which is why they're such a nightmare to be around. Like anyone who does something good, "Oh, I'll take, I'll take responsibility for that. I'll get all the praise even though it wasn't my idea, but I convinced myself it was my idea so now all the praise should be showered in my direction." And then if you don't give them that praise, they get really aggressive, they get really wound up and they're, they're just a social nightmare. So narcissistic people almost always end up alone. E- even those in relationships, they choose relationships which are basically yes men, yes women, to, to constantly give that positive reinforcement and that's not really a relationship. Relationships involve g- give and take, so they're still an island (laughs) even when they're in relationships. So narcissism is, is, is the queen of all the deadly sins as far as Saint Gregory the Great was concerned and, and he's the guy who basically invented the concept of the seven deadly sins. He took some... there were so many sins before his time in the sixth century, um, that, that it was hard to keep track of all the things you shouldn't do but he sort of narrowed it down to, "Look, these are the seven most important things to keep your eye on." You know, there are lots of other things that are going to prevent you from going to heaven in his view of the world, um, but I think he was bang on the money to, to, to sort of refine the list down to a more easily manageable seven because then we've got a fighting chance of remembering them. Like our, our capacity to hold information in mind is limited to around about seven items. So expecting someone particularly, you know, hundreds of years ago, thousand years ago, to re-, to bear in mind when they're considering, "Should I, shouldn't I do this thing?" 10 different, like, commandments-
- CWChris Williamson
They can't even read or write, but they've got 45 different commandments they've got to try and remember.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But, but like you say, with the 10-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... by the time you get to the eighth commandment, you've forgotten what the first and the second one were.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
So, so Christianity would... just had expectations that go beyond the limits of the brain's capability. So I think, I think Saint Gregory smashed it by, by bringing it down to seven.
- CWChris Williamson
Why did you say queen? What's that mean?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Probably because he's a massive sexist. Um, so, so-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... I, I think the idea was... and, and I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm presuming-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... that it was along the lines of he could have said the king, but because qu- queens, you know, from the perspective of, of a religious man who had, you know, devout, he's married to God, he doesn't do women. Women are the temptresses who, who make men think about lust, you know. Lust is one of the seven...
- CWChris Williamson
Did he say... I thought you said that pride was the queen?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... pride. So, so the idea is that once pride has seduced you, you will be much more, um, likely to fall foul of the, all of the deadly sins.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's the-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Feeding, feeding greed, including gluttony.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the pride's the buy-in, it's the on-ramp, it's the-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's the, it's, it's the gateway.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Got you.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
The gateway vice that leads to all the other. So those, I mean, whether or not he was right in that regard, I don't know.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 25:19 – 28:24
The neuroscience of narcissism: social rejection ‘hurts more’ in the brain
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But the, the most interesting finding from the neuroscience stuff was actually to do with scanning the brains of people who, who are high in narcissism, uh, in an fMRI, in an MRI scanner, and then compare their brain responses to social rejection to those who are low on the narcissism scale. And a part of the brain that lit up, um, much more strongly was a brain area involved in, in creating our perception of pain. Whether it's physical pain or psychological anguish, this brain area, uh, which is called the DACC, it's a bit of a mouthful, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.
- CWChris Williamson
Love it.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Um, so it's like, it's, it's where the two halves of the brain meet in the middle, uh, just above and to the front of the band of, um, neurons that connect the left and right side of the brain. This big bundle called the corpus callosum, um, it's j- it's just a patch of brain tissue that's a little bit above and in front of that particular, uh, structure, DACC. And, um, yeah. And, and that, that brain... So basically, what, what does that mean? What that means is when a narcissistic person is socially rejected, they feel the pain of that social rejection more acutely. And so what I took from that is perhaps that explains why they're such dreadful people in a social, in, in a social circumstance. They're, they're incredibly touchy. They're very easily offended, you know? So any amount of offense that someone in, in, in the group, in their neighborhood, in their family might cause them, you know, one unit of, of intended, um, offense causes 10 units of, of, of pain, which presumably they will then ruminate about and plot their revenge, you know, ag- aggression, um, envy and wrath, two of the deadly sins I'm sure we'll chat about later, th- they, they often inspire thoughts of plotting for revenge, you know, getting your retribution for what normally boils down to, to, to hurt pride.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, everyone that's listening knows or has a friend, there's someone in the circle, they might not be in it anymore-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... who makes everything about them. It's Jay from The Inbetweeners, you know?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
It's like he's just the epitome of-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the guy that's, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I did that." Carol Dweck's-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... fixed mindset human, well, you know, pick the avatar that you want to talk about this.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But, um, yeah, I, I, I, I feel for these people, man, like I... People that have that-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
That need to-
- CWChris Williamson
... excess pride and are super narcissists, like it makes me feel bad because I can watch their programming at play. And that's not to say I'm fucking immune, like I watch my own programming at play as well and I feel bad for myself, which is like a, a whole second circle of hell that you can descend into. But you watch these people do it and I'm like, "Fuck, man." Like I... You're, you're a cool girl or guy, you don't need to do all this, you don't have to have the show, I, I'm perfectly happy being out at dinner with you or going to the gym with you or doing whatever without this whole game.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You know?
- 28:24 – 42:36
Compassion as the antidote: Speaker’s Corner story and ‘breaking the fourth wall’ socially
- JLDr Jack Lewis
You, you just preempted absolutely beautifully the conclusion of the entire book, which is that that's the best way to deal with these people. A bit of compassion, you know, talking about the ancient wisdom, Buddha's been banging on about that forever, you know? Two and a half thousand years, Budda- Bu- Buddha's teaching's that suffering is inevitable and, and that the best way you can deal with people in the world, or, or creatures or anything in the world, is to be compassionate, you know? To think of... To, to be more mindful of other people's suffering. So it doesn't matter which of the seven deadly sins you're talking about. I found evidence for that brain area involved in generating psychological anguish, inner turmoil.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It, it's, it's, it's on a hair trigger in four out of the seven deadly sins, and probably in the other three too, which, which, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
You just got to find it. Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... the relevant, the, the relevant neuroscience studies haven't yet been done. Like any neuroscientist who s- wrote, uh, wrote a sort of, uh, um, a request for funding for research, who said, "Yeah, I'm going to study the seven deadly sins," they'd be laughed out of the room, right? I, I got lucky that there was enough neuroscience to work with to try and estimate what these brain areas do. But, but y- it's bang on the money. I thought... I got, I got to the end of writing the book and I thought, "Well, what can people do with this knowledge?" Like, like is there, is... How can it guide them on how to live a better life? And, uh, I've got a nice little anecdote about how I, I actually failed to put it into practice myself-
- CWChris Williamson
Goodness.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... this idea of the best way to deal with people who are falling foul of letting the seven deadly sin type behaviors go to the extreme and causing social chaos everywhere they go, the best way to deal with them is to be more mindful, just to think about how much extra inner turmoil they're dealing with than the average punter. And I, when I finished writing the book, um, I went back to the place where I, I was inspired to write the book, which is Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, um, you know? For, for us Brits, it's, it's, and, and in fact in the world, it's the home of freedom of speech and, and it's been that way since 1186, um, and- and it was sort of put into law in the 19th century because, uh, back in the day when people were going to be hung from the neck for some kind of crime, they'd get a chance to say a few words. They, they're going to be dead in a few minutes but, you know, doesn't really matter what they say and I, I love that in Britain we have this tradition of letting people who are doomed say their peace. It seems like a very reasonable thing to do. Anyway, so I used to go down there a lot because I'm, I'm a born and bred Londoner, I love roller skating, one of the best places to roller skate in the whole of London is up and down by the Serpentine. And when I got tired, all the way through my teens and 20s, I, I, I'd just go around to Speaker's Corner and have a little listen to all these usually men up on their ladders preaching away about whatever they wanted, it was invariably about religion.I remember thinking, "It's such a shame that a- all these people, like th- like I love that they are vehemently preaching their beliefs," and a lot of them errant beliefs in my view. But they had a place where they could speak their beliefs, and there's something very liberating about having the freedom to express yourself, even if you're completely wrong. Um, and I thought, "It's just a shame that science doesn't get a look in." And it was there where I, where I'd sort of listen to them. I'd go, "Well, 10% of what you said was bang on the money and I can learn from that, but 90% was supernatural poppycock." You know, it was mostly people arguing over whose religion is best. There's quite a lot of people from one faith having arguments with people from other faiths, you know, stress testing and going round and round in circles. But anyway, I went back there and I got up on my own soapbox, and I preached from my own book and I sort of, I, I s- I thought people would be interested, you know, passersby, "Oh, who wants to hear about the scientific perspective on the seven deadly sins?" And, and it's up on YouTube. If you go to sciofsin.com, I, I made these little videos. I got a friend to film it, and there's little six-minute snippets f- of the hour tal- hour-long talk I gave. Now about 20 minutes from the end, it was, this is like 11:30 on a Sunday, this bloke just s- came, sort of wandered over th- with like a bottle of cider in his hand, absolutely hammered, homeless guy, just shouting abuse at me nonstop for 20 minutes. And I didn't know how to deal with him, like I, I blanked him for five minutes. That didn't work. I, I brought him into the conversation a little bit trying to sort of use him to make some points. That didn't work. He was just drunk and belligerent. Anyway, I'm, I'm not proud. I edited it out, so there's no evidence of it, but I, I gave him a piece of my mind. I was rude to him. I got angry. I let him get to me, and in front of a crowd of about 50 people, I said a few quite unkind things, which didn't help matters, but nothing else had worked.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Fast-forward four months. I went back to the same spot, I gave the talk again, because I thought, "You can't just do it once." (laughs) Uh, and I told the story of how I had failed to be compassionate with that man, and that I was slightly embarrassed that I didn't put my own, you know, do... I basically did do as I say, not as I do. And I thought, "I... You know, if I get the chance, I'd lo- I'd love to make amends." You won't believe it. 10 minutes from the end of that talk, I saw him coming over from the background. I saw him wandering towards. I leapt off my soapbox, I ran over to him, and I was like, "It's so great to see you again. I'm really sorry for what I said last time." I threw my arms around him and gave him a hug. Now this guy is... You know, a lot of homeless people are mentally ill. There's a very high proportion. Like, and I did it on instinct because it felt like the right thing to do. Obviously un- unplanned. And at that moment of embracing him, I thought, "Is he, is he going to stab me? Like, you know, I could end up getting hurt here. What an idiot." On the contrary, he melted. He, he was tense and then when he... Like, I held him for about five, 10 seconds, and I felt him relax into my arms, which is weird, right? And he was good as gold. For, for the whole rest of the talk, he did not disturb once, whereas before he'd been going, "You're not an F-ing neurologist. You're a loony." You know, he was good as gold. And then at the end he came up to me and he's like, "I actually listened to you this time and I come down here to disturb these people because I think these religious zealots are nuts and they shouldn't be telling people to follow God. I think everyone should make their own decisions in life, and that's why I've come and been disruptive." He's like, "Now that I've listened to you, I agree with every word you said."
- CWChris Williamson
Man, what a cool-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Which was nice.
- CWChris Williamson
... what a cool-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Which was nice.
- CWChris Williamson
What a cool story. So having been on the front door of more nightclubs than I can remember, I know the pain of dealing with someone who's drunk. And when, when people have got alcohol in them, man, there's just no ce- You're not talking to them. You're talking to the blood alcohol .10 or whatever it is. That's what you're talking to, right?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but yeah, definitely what I really enjoy doing, and I'm enjoying in doing it increasingly now, is breaking the fourth wall of a conversation in that sort of a manner. So if someone's doing something, if someone is being driven by their programming or they have a response to something, I'll ask them about the response, not about what they said, but like, "Hang on a second, man. Like why, why did you say that?" Or, "Why, why were you so sort of, um, self-effacing there? Like, why did you have to kind of caveat what you were going to say and say that, 'Oh, well, I know that it's just shit, but it's this thing.' It's like, why didn't you just say it?" "Oh, well, uh..." (stutters) And you can see people, the, the cognitive dissonance starts to fire and you're like, the programming just, it doesn't want to accept the fact, "I should have just said the words." But increasingly, I think, you know, doing it with compassion, not doing it to show off, doing it to say, "Look, like you don't need to be over or under. You..." That kind of-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the virtuous mean in the middle is exactly where you can be, and I think calling people out on that, it... As you said at the beginning, you want to be friends with people that want the best for you, not people-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that want- that tell you what you want to hear.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Not people that decide to be too mean and, and kind of, um, use you as a, uh, a punching bag for their own-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... kind of emotional challenges.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but man, that's a, that's a really, really cool story. I'm super glad as well that you managed to get some closure and, and, and kind of finish that loop off.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Because I imagine it must have felt very, very satisfying. Also, obviously-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
That's very e- empathic of you because I... It, it, it ate away at me. I, I pride myself on not being a hypocrite. I try to not be a hypocrite, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
And not being a dick, I'm going to guess as well.
- 42:36 – 50:06
Gluttony in the modern world: from evolutionary advantage to brain-health risk
- CWChris Williamson
Um, let's, look, let's get back. We have six sins remaining. Gluttony. Gluttony is up next and we touched on it earlier on, right? Fitness enhancing. We have... It's the only time in all of our human evolutionary history where we're in this situation-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's so funny that you say that. I'm sorry. The ice cream van is literally pulling up outside.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
<< Just one Cornetto >> Perfect timing.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Go on.
- CWChris Williamson
Jack-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Sorry to interrupt.
- CWChris Williamson
If you go outside and get us a 99 Flake now, I'll pause the... No. It would be...
- JLDr Jack Lewis
I hate that guy because literally I think, I know it's... I must sound like such a...
- CWChris Williamson
Dick.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, but I, whenever, whenever they come past, I think, "You're just there to make fat teenagers fatter."
- CWChris Williamson
I don't like mine, so mine goes past the end of my... I don't like mine because he always does it when I'm recording content and it's always on the take where I've nailed it, you know?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And I've had the auto cue running for ages-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It does, doesn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
And then it's the one and then... (singing) Ugh, f-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck!
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Well, at least he's got the just one Cornetto Music, 'cause for a couple of years he had some godawful nursery rhyme. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... you know, we've, we've got to be grateful for the little things.
- CWChris Williamson
Stuff of nightmares. So yeah, gluttony, fitness enhancing. For a long time we were in a situation where food was scarce, we didn't know when the next meal was coming. Now, the world's changed and we're in this abundant surplus of food-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... but apparently if we still, if we eat too much of it, it's a vice. Why?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Because it's really, really bad for you. Um, if you're ... So, there, there's been some quite interesting research done with, uh, looking at the white matter integrity. So the white matter in the brain is like the, the neur- neuronal cabling. You know, like there's billions and billions of wire, brain wires sending electrical information from one end to the other, reaches a synapse, spills a bit, bit of neurotransmitter into the gap, travels across to the next neuron in, in, in the chain, and then that one becomes a little bit more or less likely to send its own electrical messages. So it's got this ... The reason it's white matter rather than the gray matter is 'cause there's a go faster wrapper called myelin around the outside to accelerate the speed of that electrical message so that it can get where it needs to go super, super fast. So when you talk about the integrity of the white matter, it's basically how good is that go faster wrapper? Um, is it, is it in good shape or is it in bad shape? And if you look at the brains of people who are obese, as far as their BMI is con- concerned, and you compare them to the brains of people who are lean, as far as BMI is concerned, uh, if ... Your average 50-year-old, uh, if you're obese, the white matter looks like what you'd get for your average lean 60-something-year-old. You know? So it ages the brain by 10 years. There's lot, all sorts of kind of cognitive capacities that are reduced. So this is obviously, it's not vice from the perspective of heaven or hell, we're, we're getting away from that entirely. A vice in terms of making a hell of your life on earth compared to what it could be. Um, you know, I have the greatest sympathy for people who, who struggle not to overeat because I overeat hugely.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
I have done my whole life.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it. It's satisfying.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But I've al- I've always been a sports person and, and since childhood I had tremendous excessive energy. And that, that wasn't my choice. In fact, it caused my parents ... Like, I, I, I never stopped. I was constantly running around, climbing up things. I wanted to do every sport that was available on the planet. I just wouldn't stop. So all I've done is continue doing that. Even though I keep up the same level of sport, I've still found that I, I have to constantly focus on eating less, increasing the gaps between my eating so that I don't end up, you know, eating something just before I go to bed and then eating as soon as I get up in the morning. I'm trying to extend that period where I'm fasting.
- 50:06 – 55:44
Lust without guilt: arousal isn’t chosen, behavior is (plus the ‘tumor’ case study)
- CWChris Williamson
Next one, lust, which was my ... Personally, in the book, that was the, uh, chapter that I found the most interesting. It was also-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the one that I can imagine triggered people the most and was the most uncomfortable. Um, but I want, if you would, I want you to ... First off, actually, do people have conscious control over what makes them feel sexually excited?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
No, absolutely not. No one should feel guilty for feeling sexual desire towards another person because we have zero control over that. Whether or not we act upon that temptation, whether or not we act upon that attraction is a whole different matter. But the actual l- you, we can't ... A gay man can't control whether his lust is triggered by looking at a man or a woman. A straight man cannot decide to be straight or bi or gay. You, it's, it's just, it's just not, it's not-
- CWChris Williamson
We don't-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... in our control.
- CWChris Williamson
We have no conscious control over what makes us feel sexually excited, which is what, I guess, looking back at the ancient way that the church dealt with homosexuality makes that a very pernicious, um, way for people to have to live. Your-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, I mean, basically s- sodomy is anything that isn't having sex with the intent of making a baby.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, okay. So the wi- the-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Any an- any sexual activity that isn't aimed at making a baby is sodomy in the eyes of Christianity, at least the original, you know, uh, back in the days of Christ.
- CWChris Williamson
That would include the withdrawal method, well, well-timed withdrawal method.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And masturbation and-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, wow.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... you know, all sorts of things which through-
- CWChris Williamson
Everyone that's listening-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... modern eyes are very innocent.
- CWChris Williamson
Everyone that's listening is a sodomite. Uh, there-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, pretty much.
- CWChris Williamson
If you're not a sodomite, if you're listening and you're not a sodomite, I want to, I wanna meet you because you're interesting.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But that's even in the context of a ... That's even, in the context ... If, if you're going to be really strict about it, and then let's not bash religious perspectives because they, you know, there are different, there are different interpretations of ... This is the, this is the original guidance back in the day that inspired the concept of the lust being a sev- one of the seven deadly sins, right? Like, this is, this is the, the bel- the antecedents to this belief we- were all around that. But even that, that would f- be ... Even in the context of, of a, of a married couple, you know, married in a church, um, if they have sex just for fun, that's sodomy. Like if you have sex with a condom on, that's sodomy.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's bonkers. It's bonkers.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it is. Um, so can you take us through the Burns and Swerdlow tumor study?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Can you remind me what that is? (laughs) There were a lot of studies. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So it's the one, it was the one about the, uh, married man who was having sex, pedophilic sexual urges.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yes. So, um, he's a guy who was, to all intents and purposes, a responsible man. He, he was a teacher. He, he, you know, held down jobs well. He was liked by ... You know, not the most popular bloke in, in, in the school, but he was, um, uh, you know, a stand-up member of society. He started, uh, developing sexual urges towards his stepdaughter. His stepdaughter mentioned this to her mother and-
- CWChris Williamson
Who, who was 14.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... who was 14. Um, quite rightly, um, they had a word, you know, and with, with the law. And he got banged up for pedophilia because he'd made advances on his stepdaughter. Um, he then complained of a banging headache, um, whis- whilst incarcerated, and so they duly took him for a brain scan and found a massive tuna- tumor pressing on a part of his brain. Um, they removed the tumor. He then claimed, said that all of his pedophilic fantasies had disappeared. Um, he no longer wished that he could still have his ... You know, like when, when, when he was in prison, he still was hankering for his, uh, collection of pedophilic, um, material, and-
- CWChris Williamson
He was going after the, um, the nurses as well, or like the assistants that were in the recovery facility-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. I think he made-
- 55:44 – 1:03:03
The hardest conversation: pedophilia, prevention, and pragmatic compassion
- CWChris Williamson
... that brings up, there's a, a big section in the book about p- pedophilia, which I think is a fascinating topic, and ever since I was seeing a girl at uni, and one of her housemates went to go and give a talk at- at a lecture theater, saying that we need to treat people with pedophilia with more compassion because-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... do you think that these people want to be attracted to children?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Given the choice of all of the different things that they could be attracted to in the world-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... do you think they want to be attracted to children?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And ever since then, I've, I've been f- f- stuff like this absolutely fascinates me, the thought-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
No, no, I agree with-
- CWChris Williamson
... how do we think about it philosophically, how do we see it societally, you know?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Well, let's think of it from the perspective of what's best for society, right? We, we, we want to reduce as much as possible the incidents of pedophiles making advances o- on children because obviously that scars children for the rest of their lives and it causes huge, huge problems. So, so what's a, what's a pragmatic way of dealing with that problem? It's certainly not to make them feel vilified, so the minute they accept it, everyone in, in th- in their life turns away from them, when they, if they were to go to a doctor, you know, they, they would, they, they would worry probably quite rightly that they might get reported to the police 'cause I'd imagine, I don't know for sure, but your average EP has a d- has a duty or might feel a duty to report this because that person, even if they say, "I'm controlling it," but these urges are there, well, do you really want to take the risk that they're saying one thing and doing another? Of course not. So, but the thing is, if you or I were a pedophile, where would we go for help? And that's the bit that I think we need to focus on. If there's no one to turn to, where do you go? You hide it. You suppress it. Is that a good way to deal with problems? Invariably, no. You know, if, if you bottle it and pretend it's not there, it's, it's likely to grow, you know? Can get worse and worse. You need help. But w- where can these people go for help? So, I think what's happened over the course of, you know, all, all time until now, because they're so vilified, they're considered evil, wrong, broken, beyond redemption, um, they know full well that the only people who are gonna, they're gonna get a sympathetic ear from are, are the pedophiles, and so then it's gonna go from entertaining thoughts to, "Oh, shit, have you checked out this website?"
- CWChris Williamson
It catalyzes the situation, doesn't it? By being able-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Or, or, or, or 20 years ago, like, oh, I can get ahold of some videos, and, you know, VHS videos or, or DVDs or whatever, and then, and then it circulates and then it goes underground and that's the bit that concerns me. Society's quite understandable attitude of disgust towards pedophiles only serves to dr- drive them underground. A- and it's such a hard problem to deal with. I think most people are just like, "Oh, I don't want to think about this anymore."
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
And then they, they probably don't think about it until it comes up in the news again, but I think we need to address it. It's just who's going to do it? Like I, I certainly thought twice about putting ... I thought it was important to include that information, but on a number of occasions, I thought maybe I'm going to take it out 'cause I don't want to sound like an apologist. That's absolutely what I am not. Um, but at the same time, you, you got to discuss it because it happens in the world, and you know, there's a, there's a proportion of people who have those tendencies and pretty much all of them in the UK, as far as I know, don't have anywhere to turn to get help, to get therapy, to get ... Be, be taught the tools of how to deal with it in a way that doesn't ruin their quality of life or that of anyone else's.
- CWChris Williamson
I think you said there's a call line, special-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah, but it's-
- CWChris Williamson
... call line that 50% of the calls are unanswered due to-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the call line not being sufficiently well manned.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I'd be interested, the people that are listening, I'd be really interested to hear what you think. Like, give me a DM or comment below, whatever, 'cause, um, it's a f- it's a really fascinating topic and, you know, anyone that wants to say, "Oh, this is making, this is an apologist thing for pedophiles." Like, fuck off, man. Like, you don't know what you're talking about. This has got nothing to do with that. It's to do with how can we have an effective society which helps to bring everybody along with it? And at what point do you make someone culpable for the thoughts that are in their head?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, are you actually going to make someone culpable not only for thought crime, but for thought crime that by definition in neuroscience they do not have conscious control over?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. Well, which, which is, and the evidence says-
- CWChris Williamson
Holy fucking shit.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... some of your listeners won't have read it, right? Almost by definition, and, and the bit that, that really made me think differently about it is this thing called plethismography, one of the hardest words to pronounce in science.
- CWChris Williamson
Say it again.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Plethis- bastard.
- 1:03:03 – 1:08:08
Lust’s evolutionary mechanics (and uncomfortable biology)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, right, two more things, two more things in lust that I really, I really thought was cool. Um, I didn't realize that the female orgasm has a reproductive function. What, is it the cilia, is it called?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
The little hair-like, um, hair-like extensions that, that reach out into the fallopian tube.
- CWChris Williamson
The, the waft. Mm-hmm.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It actually wafts the sperm into the correct ... You know, there's two fallopian tubes, um, and it wafts it into the one that the egg will be found in-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... over and above the one that didn't produce an egg.
- CWChris Williamson
So I've ... Is that selective from an evolutionary sense?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Sure. I mean, I, I don't see how else it could have occurred.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Okay, cool. So woman enjoys sex, someone that she has a emotional and physical connection with equals more likely to orgasm, equals more likely to direct the sperm through this Mexican wave of little cilia, cilia things down ... I mean, that, even just learning that, bro, like the fact that-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
And conversely, do you, do you wanna know a bit that I didn't put in?
- CWChris Williamson
Hit me.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Do you know what the male, male foreskin does in te- in practical, physical terms?
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, acts as a little helmet and-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's, it's one of its functions that it, it does the job well. Whether it was designed for that purpose or not is, is, you know, very difficult to discern. But it, it extracts the previous deposit of semen, so that your semen makes it to the finish line. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I don't ... I thought that was ... Is that not to do with the, like the coronal head shape of the penis itself that creates a suction inside of the vagina? Is that not how that works? I didn't -
- JLDr Jack Lewis
I think it's a bit of-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... I think, I think, like, but then in order for it to, in order for it to ... I'm doing a grab.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, okay. So it's catch-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Y- you can, you-
- CWChris Williamson
It's catching it as it goes ... Oh dude, that's so disgusting.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
But it's funny, isn't it? Like if it ... If that's true and I don't know for sure whether it's true, I've just read some papers that suggest it-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I've, I've heard, I've heard it as well.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. But, um, you know, the, the concept of us being historically biologically, um, uh, monogamous is slightly dubious if we've evolved-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, we, well the y-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... the task-
- CWChris Williamson
We're the only mammals on the planet. We're the only mammals on the planet, if that's the case. Final thing, final bit in lust.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- 1:08:08 – 1:32:41
Envy: motivating comparison vs malicious takedowns (and social media’s distortion)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, true. Okay, so envy next. You say envy is the least fun of all-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... capital vices. What makes envy different to the other ones?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. Well, I mean when you feel envious it's unpleasant, isn't it? But when you snap at someone who's doing your head in, wrath, it's quite fleetingly satisfying, even if you might regret it in the long run. Um, you know, if you win at poker and you end up winning all the money and the other 11 people, or whatever around the table, don't get it, that's fleetingly satisfying until the next time you go back and play poker and lose it all again. So envy is, you know, there's, there's benign envy which is good, which is where-
- CWChris Williamson
What's that? What's that?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... you, you compare yourself to other people. Um, usually it's people who had a similar start in life, uh, that, that it, that this works with, like grew up in a similar part of the world, similar level of education, similar opportunity, similar start in life. Yet one person, the other person, has gone way beyond you and it can make you feel ... You can respond to that in different ways. Uh, b- but benign envy is where you examine them, you work out, "What did they do that I didn't?" And you learn from them, and you work out gaps in your sort of toolkit of ways to manage your life and deal with the world. And you maybe, you know, think, you, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn how to do that," or, "I'm gonna start moving in more influential circles so that I can maybe get some of those trappings too." You know? We ... Envy helps us realize when we're lagging behind other people in our social group, um, and we're not getting as much as they are, so it can alert us to possibilities, to potential. The dark side of envy is malicious envy 'cause there are two ways you can even the gap out. You can either pull yourself up by your bootstraps in order to get to a similar level to, to the person you're envious of, but there's also the other way of, uh, circulating malicious gossip and bringing them tumbling down. Like, so quite often people respond, uh, to their feelings, perfectly natural feelings of envy, by wanting to bring about the downfall of that other person by any means necessary. So the ... E- envy can inspire awful behaviors, incredibly antisocial behavior, um, in, in, in some people in some circumstances.
- CWChris Williamson
I love the, the way that you put it. You said, "Envy has a sense of injustice at its core."
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a, a really nice-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
It's unfair, isn't it? Why have they got all this and I've got nothing? Why have they ... da, da, da? Why have they ... da, da, da? You know? It's the, it's the old refrain, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
It make-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
The other bit is, um ... Go on.
- CWChris Williamson
It just ... Envy being useful and motivating you to compete makes sense.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Mmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It also makes sense from a, a, a, an evolutionary, a fitness enhancing perspective, right? You think like, "Oh, well, this is, this is my get up and go." And so much of this is in ... It, it's your own ability to take yourself out of yourself and see someone that's doing really, really well.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Or even not ... See someone who's doing badly, but kind of just slowly creeping up on you-
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and not seeing it as a threat, not seeing it as a zero sum game.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. The, the interesting thing about envy is it, it's one of the, one of the four where that, that brain area, the ACC that's involved in pain, um ... At the moment people feel envy, when they read about someone else from their childhood doing really, really well, much, much better than them, that brain area kicks in hard at that moment you feel envy. You know? It sort of ... inner turmoil is what, is what inspires a lot of unpleasant behaviors. You know? That's the, that's often the first link in the chain that leads to unpleasant antisocial behaviors. Which I, I was shocked that I kept finding this brain area, because I have to admit (laughs) , when I set out, out on this project I hadn't done, I hadn't done the research before I wrote the book proposal. I found out what I found, and then I reflected on it, and then, and then wrote a book about it. So I couldn't believe how lucky I was getting four out of five. And actually gluttony was one of the ones that this brain area didn't, uh, kick, kick up in. But after-
- CWChris Williamson
How would that, how would that have operated? Would that be when you were going to have the food and you don't have the food and you feel pain?
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Yeah. It's, it's when you're, you're try ... Well, fun- funnily enough, um, I can't remember the exact study, but a couple of months after the book was published, a study did come out suggesting that-
- CWChris Williamson
(gasps) Motherfuckers.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
... in people that have problems, um, with overeating, that at the moment they make that choice to give into it, it's almost like the, the, the emotional turmoil of the self-loathing about, "God, here I go again. My resolve is crumbling."
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
From memory, this was a year ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
Um, but I remember thinking, "Oh, if only I'd delayed by another six months (laughs) I could have included this."
- CWChris Williamson
You could've got another one in there, yeah.
- JLDr Jack Lewis
And it would've been ... Well, it would've been f- Then it would've been six out of seven, but I had to discount lust. The DACC was the m- Like across ... There's so many studies done showing people porn in, in f- MRI brain imaging tubes, and the DACC comes up again and again and again and again and again. But I had to discount it because it's also a brain area that deals in all sorts of conflict. And if there's one thing that you're told over and over again in the MRI tube is, "Don't move. Don't move. Don't move." And I think that produces huge conflict when, under normal circumstances when people are watching porn, they do move a certain part of their body.
Episode duration: 2:07:58
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Transcript of episode YWAFtfqPp6o
