Mind Under Matter

The Guinea Pigs of Comedy™ take a personality test!

Shane and Ramin go through the Big 5 Personality Indicator questionnaire so you can hear how we rate on various traits. Along the way, we explore why the 'Big 5' uses extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism as the umbrella terms that all other traits fall under.

We chat about why most modern personality researchers abandoned the Myers-Briggs Test long ago. We also talk about the role of both evolution and environment in shaping the diversity of human personality and why there are pros and cons to rating higher or lower on a given trait. You’ll not only get to learn a lot more about who we are, but we hope you will find it illuminating in better understanding yourself as well.

We appreciate you being high enough in openness to listen/watch and neurotically hope you find this episode agreeable! Thanks to all the extraverts who spread the word about Mind Under Matter!

Be conscientious and subscribe on YouTube or your podcast app and while you’re there please give us a Big 5-star rating!

This week The Semi-Semiliterate Boys of Comedy™ riff on some of their favorite books!

Think book clubs are boring?  Have you ever been to a book club where the ghost of Terrance McKenna makes a cameo for a good ole’ bro hang with mushrooms, kratom, DMT, crying, grunts, and The World’s Greatest Fake Dad??

New Ramin impression alert!  Find out how realistic different aspects of science fiction are from the ideas popularized by theoretical physicist and futurist Machio Kaku! We’ll finally answer some of those nagging physics questions that keep us all up at night:  Is perpetual motion possible?  What is the future of invisibility? Is it possible that there is a multiverse where Jay Leno has a garage full of classic civilizations?

This episode is the first of a monthly public series where the SSBC™ will be taking suggestions from MUMtreon.  Shout out to Alex for this months topic!  If you like supporting ad-free content while getting an entire bonus series, game nights and more, head to patreon.com/mindunderpod where you can join the community and offer suggestions for topics that interest you.

Subscribe to the show on YouTube or the podcasting app of your choice.

The Fictitious Fictional Fictions of Funny™ explore the way that imagination and storytelling have shaped human evolution.

This week Ramin reveals his latest impression as we pay tribute to author, historian, and YouTube neighbor Yuval Noah Harari.

We tend to think the objective realities such as accumulating resources and the use of tools have put humans at the top of the food chain, but those abilities aren’t exactly novel in the animal kingdom.  Perhaps what sets humans apart is our ability to communicate, organize, and cooperate around subjective realities.

No other species has built and destroyed entire civilizations over stories that are no more real or even entertaining as an average modern movie.

Objectively, what even is Mind Under Matter?  Is it the equipment we use to record?  Is it the YouTube Channel you can subscribe to?  Is it the server it is stored on?  Is it the podcast you can download on your favorite app?  Is it the internet that delivers it?  Is it Shane and/or Ramin?  Is it the editor Matt and/or producer Rhianna who are paid by your Patreon support?  Is it our website?  Is it the merch you could buy on the website?  OR is Mind Under Matter an agreed upon fiction that only exists in our collective imagination?  

Listen to an impression of someone else’s imagination to find out the true nature of reality!

This week The Space Cadets of Comedy™ try to recall what they know about memory.

You can’t remember EVERYTHING, but would you really want to even if you could?  How about some appreciation for forgetting?  Without that unsung hero of memory, consciousness would have a lot harder time knowing what is worth holding on to.

What makes the cut in each of our autobiographical memories?  How is the brain deciding what makes the highlight reel?  Memory might seem like a recorder, but it’s also the editor and the PR person.  That can make recounting experiences and eyewitness testimony as deceptive as a magic show.

Listen to get some science history lessons from The SCC™ as we explore the most memorable neuroscience patients.  You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to advance science... all you really need is to get yourself some abnormal neural functioning, and spice that up with a heaping scoop of cognitive dissonance.  It's so easy you might not even remember it happening no matter if it's happening again and again.

You could pay a therapist or hypnotist to implant the memory of listening to this episode,

or do it the old-fashioned way and subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

The Reminiscing Boys of Comedy™ share stories of the teachers who inspired them as well as what prompted them to start comedy about 15 years ago.

Why did it take going to jail to follow a dream?  What is it about hitting rock bottom that can prompt one to shoot for the stars?  What’s scarier: Your first open mic or getting mugged?

And what happens when The RBC™ finds out that following dreams can also become its own prison?  GETTING to do something vs HAVING to do something can completely change the subject experience of what is objectively the same act.  When you turn the thing you love into your career, it can make what you love feel like a job... just ask Genghis Khan.

Finally, we consider the hedonic treadmill of modernity.  Technology has in some ways allowed many of us the opportunity to live better than medieval kings, but we’re also our own servants.

The Middle-Aged Super Mature Grown-Up Men of Comedy™ celebrate Shane’s 41st birthday the only way they know how… by dissecting it tirelessly!

Shane metaphorically jumps out of his own birthday cake to share some birthday memories.

Pro-tip:  If you want to make a birthday memorable, get the police involved.

Being over the hill might remind some of mortality, but knowing you probably have to grind out another 40+ years of existence can drive a person insane.  Sometimes it feels like you’re aging like fine wine, other times life feels like an LSD trip that has gone on a bit too long.  Life is truly bizarre.

Wondering what to get a podcaster for their birthday?  Easy!!!  The same gift every podcaster wants… a thoughtful review of the show on your favorite app.  

Lastly, if the birthday boy can get a little sentimental in a typically goofy podcast description:  Finding an audience of people who get me in a world I don’t always get, makes me grateful to exist.

Thank you for listening to The MASMGUMC™!

This week The Existential Boys of Comedy™ will be your Sherpas as we descend into the abyss.

What happens when you just don’t want to exist anymore?  Is that even an option?  Can anything ever stop existing?  Does life die or does it just eat itself?  Is this even our body that we are in or are we just renting it?

There are no vacancies in nothingness, so have a seat at the something table as the EBC™ stick their necks out to consider the timeless philosophical puzzle:  What happens if tomorrow you and everyone you know wake up as a giraffe?

Finally, we consider the beautiful tragedy that is Tetris and attempt to put all the pieces together before the end (if there is such a thing).

If you’ve listened to every episode so far, you have The High Score!

If this is your first game, you might want to listen from episode 0 to build your skills and become a MUMaster.

The week is all about the stress response, confirmation bias, and the theatrics of consciousness

The Chronically Stressed Boys of Comedy™ discuss why hippos don’t get mortgages, how nuanced hormonal interactions can say the darndest things, and why evolution hasn’t equipped life to relax at the drop of a hat.

You’ve been called for jury duty in the courtroom of the mind.  The CSBC™ contemplate how the lawyers in our minds will keep searching for evidence even after the case has closed.

All reasons to delay listening on your favorite app or watching on YouTube are inadmissible and should be stricken from the record.

Storytime!

How hard is it to smuggle psychedelics through an airport while on 2CB for your first time?  Apparently, it’s somehow less complicated than beard maintenance.

During a manic episode, Shane was once banned from looking at Ramin’s art and/or anything related to time travel.  

After storytelling hour, we dive into the subconscious mind and consider what selection criteria the brain is using when deciding which ideas are worth putting in the big game of consciousness and which should stay in the locker room.  For every idea you consciously experience, how many ideas almost made the cut that you'll never even be aware of?  And what was so special about the idea that did win a place in your consciousness?

This week we start out with what our minds have led us to believe is a 120% accurate exploration of the evolution of self-deception.

Your MUMsters of Ceremony™ consider how the ability to deceive and detect deception in others has shaped how we systematically deceive ourselves in testable ways.

They laugh about how new insights can unlock an embarrassing cascade of memories that lead to beautifully cringey epiphanies. Crying can feel like a drug, but don't get hooked... forcing that much-needed cry is perhaps the second most awkward therapeutic release.

Ramin informs Shane that not everyone naps in a terrifying fractal swamp of rejuvenation. And finally, the MUMsters™ hope that going to see Tony Robbins while on acid will help build their MUMpire.