Eleventh Century Japan. A samurai and his wife are walking through the forest and come across a bandit. The bandit attacks the samurai and has sex with/rapes his wife. A woodcutter finds the samurai, stabbed to death. Who killed the samurai and with what? What role did his wife play in his death? Kurosawa gives us four perspectives, told in flashbacks within flashbacks. Who’s telling the truth? Is anyone? Can we ever know what really happened? A simple story on the surface becomes a meditation on epistemological despair.

Plus, your lizard brain is out to get you and you only have 90 seconds to stop it!

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Links:

• When Your Lizard Brain Burns You Out And Short-Circuits Your Career
• Triune brain - Wikipedia
• Cesario, J., Johnson, D. J., & Eisthen, H. (2019). Your Brain Is Not an Onion with a Tiny Reptile Inside.
• David talks Watchmen on the Pretty Much Pop Podcast
• Tamler Sommers Talks Honor on Stoa Podcast
• Rashomon - Wikipedia
• Rashomon (1950) | The Criterion Collection
• Rashomon | The Current | The Criterion Collection
• Rashomon Analysis - Rashomon's Problem with Truth | Topic
• Every Frame A Painting: The Bad Sleep Well (1960) - The Geometry of a Scene - YouTube
• Akira Kurosawa - Composing Movement

David and Tamler wrap up the decade with an episode on trash-talking that morphs into a debate over the value of experimental inquiry. Participants in a lab put more effort into a slider task after they’re insulted by a confederate. Do experiments like these tell us anything about trash-talking in general? Can it explain the effect of Mike Tyson telling Lenox Lewis he’d eat his children, or of Larry Bird looking around the locker room before the 3-point contest saying he was trying to figure out who’d finish second? Can it tell us how football players should talk to their opponents? Does it give us a more modest but still valuable insight that we can apply to the real world? This is our first real fight (or disagreement) in a while.

Plus, some mixed feelings about Mr. Robot Season 4 Episode 11 and some tentative predictions (recorded before the finale which aired by the time this episode is released). Happy holidays!

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Links:

• Yip, J. A., Schweitzer, M. E., & Nurmohamed, S. (2018). Trash-talking: Competitive incivility motivates rivalry, performance, and unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 144, 125-144.
• Kniffin, K. M., & Palacio, D. (2018). Trash-talking and trolling. Human Nature, 29(3), 353-369.

David and Tamler happen across Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Zahir” and now they can’t stop thinking about it. What is the ‘Zahir’ – this object that can take many forms and that consumes the people who find it? What does it represent? Is it the fanaticism of being in love? The ever-present threat (and temptation) of idealism? A subtle critique of Christian theology? Is the Zahir a microcosm of everything? Why is Borges so obsessed with obsession?

Plus, it’s the annual drunken end-of-the night Thanksgiving ‘debate’ between Tamler and IDW stepmother extraordinaire Christina Hoff Sommers. Topics raised and then quickly dropped include Bernie for President, Melinda Gates, critic reviews of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and more. Stay tuned for the end when Christina finds her “notes”. (And for special cameos from David Sommers and Eliza).

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• Blinkist: Fit reading into your life. Key takeaways from the world’s best nonfiction books in text and audio. Visit blinkist.com/verybadwizards for a special offer for our listeners. Promo Code: verybadwizards
• GiveWell: This holiday season, open your heart to those in need, and consider donating through Givewell.org. Givewell.org is an organization that cares about finding the most effective charities in the world, so that you can make each charitable dollar work as hard as possible. And for our listeners who are first time donors, Givewell.org will match your donation (up to $1,000). Promo Code: Verybadwizards

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Links:

• The Zahir - Jorge Luis Borges (Full Text PDF)
• El Zahir - Sufi theme in Jorge Luis Borges's writing | Technology of the Heart
• The Most Famous Coin in Borges

Tamler learns something new about menstruation. David weighs in on the democratic debates and the impeachment hearings. Then we map the various social and political factions onto the factions in our respective fields. Who are establishment neoliberals of philosophy, and who are the white feminists? What about the IDWs of psychology – and the Chads and Stacys?

Finally we get serious and break down the article by Alan Fiske in Psychological Review called “The Lexical Fallacy in Emotion Research.” Does language affect how we understand the emotional landscape? Do the words we happen to use deceive us into thinking we have “carved nature at its joints”? What is a natural kind anyway when it comes to emotions?

Plus, after the outro, a quick unedited Mr. Robot discussion of the revelation in season 4, episode 7.

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Links:

• Fiske, A. P. (2019). The lexical fallacy in emotion research: Mistaking vernacular words for psychological entities. Psychological review.
• UCLA Anthropology
• Natural Kinds (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• "Mr. Robot" 407 Proxy Authentication Required (TV Episode 2019) - IMDb

David and Tamler discuss famous 'split brain' experiments pioneered by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga. What happens when you cut off the main line of communication between the left and right hemispheres of our brain? Why under certain conditions do the the left and right brains seem like they have different abilities and desires? What does this tell us about the ‘self’? Do we have two consciousnesses, but only that can speak? Does the left brain bully the right brain? Are we all just a bundle of different consciousnesses with their own agendas? Thanks to our Patreon supporters for suggesting and voting for this fascinating topic!

Plus, physicists may be able to determine whether we’re living in a computer simulation – but is it too dangerous to try to find out?

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• Outlier.Org: Enrich your mind and earn college credits with one of the new courses from Outlier.Org. From the co-founders of MasterClass, Outlier.Org brings you beautifully crafted and filmed courses taught by some of the top professors in the world. Spaces are limited, so sign up today for classes beginning in January 2020.

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Links:

• Opinion | Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out - The New York Times
• Physicists find we’re not living in a computer simulation | Cosmos
• Nagel, T. (1971). Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness. /Synthese/, /22/(3), 396-413.
• CGP Grey video - You Are Two
• Split brains - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Gazzaniga, M. S. (1995). Principles of human brain organization derived from split-brain studies. /Neuron/, /14/(2), 217-228.
• Split brain: divided perception but undivided consciousness | Brain | Oxford Academic
• Interaction in isolation: 50 years of insights from split-brain research | Brain | Oxford Academic
• Dennett, D. C. (2014). The self as the center of narrative gravity. In /Self and consciousness/ (pp. 111-123). Psychology Press.

We try (with varying success) to wrap our heads around Thomas Nagel’s classic article “What is it Like to be a Bat?" Does science have the tools to give us a theory of consciousness or is that project doomed from the outset? Why do reductionist or functionalist explanations seem so unsatisfying? Is the problem that consciousness is subjective, or is it something about the nature of conscious experience itself? Is this ultimately an epistemological or metaphysical question? What are we talking about? Do we even know anymore?

Plus, the return of Mr. Robot! We talk about the big new mystery at the heart of the new season.

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Links:

• Mr. Robot - Season 4 - IMDb
• Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83, 435-450. [pdf]
• What Is it Like to Be a Bat? - Wikipedia
• Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel

Is character destiny, or can fluky decisions or tiny shifts in weather patterns fundamentally change who we are? Does the existence or non-existence of alternate universes have any bearing on freedom and responsibility? David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Ted Chiang’s “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” along with another very short piece by Chiang called “What’s Expected of Us” that was first published in Nature.

Plus, do you have low likability in the workplace? It could be because you’re too moral and therefore not that funny. But don’t worry, we have a solution that’ll help you increase your humor production and likability with no reduction in morality. All you have to do is listen!

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Links:

• Richard Brody Reviews "Joker" | New Yorker
• Batman: The Killing Joke - Wikipedia
• Falling Down (1993) - IMDb
• People with high moral standards 'less likely' to be funny | The Independent
• Yam, K. C., Barnes, C. M., Leavitt, K., Uhlmann, E. L., & Wei, W. (2016). Why So Serious? Experimental and Field Evidence that Morality and a Sense of Humor are Psychologically Incompatible. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Aquino, K., & Reed, I. I. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), 1423.
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang [amazon.com affiliate link]
• What's Expected of Us by Ted Chiang | Nature

David and Tamler dive back into the Ted Chiang well and explore the fascinating world described in "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom." What if you could interact with alternate versions of yourself - versions that made different choices, had different jobs, or different partners? Would you get jealous of your other selves if they were more successful? Would you want them to be unhappy so you could feel better about your own choices and path? If your alternate self was in a good relationship with a woman, would you try to track down the version of that woman in this world? If you made an immoral choice but your other self made the moral one, what does that say about your character? And what does it say about free will and responsibility?

So many questions, such an interesting story - turns out we need to dedicate another segment next time to conclude the discussion. Hope you enjoy it! If you haven't bought Exhalation (Ted Chiang's new collection) We can't recommend it highly enough. This is the last story in that collection.

Plus – we select the topic finalists for our beloved Patreon listener-selected episode. Will Denial of Death make the cut again?

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Links:

• Ted Chiang's "Exhalation" [amazon.com affiliate link]
• Eddy Nahmias, Close calls and the confident agent: Free will, deliberation, and alternative possibilities - PhilPapers

David and Tamler start out with a discussion of the new Chappelle special and the negative reaction from many critics. Is Chappelle trolling his audience? Has he lost touch with the powerless people he used to champion? Or have critics missed his larger point, and failed to approach the new special as an art form? Then they address the latest development in the literature around Benjamin Libet's famous study that, according to some people, proved that free will doesn't exist. How did that study get so much attention in the first place? Tamler proposes a Marxist analysis. Plus, David teaches Tamler how to pronounce Bereitschaftspotential antisemitically.

This episode is sponsored by Simple Habit.

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Links:

• Does Free Will Exist? Neuroscience Can't Disprove It Yet. - The Atlantic
• Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action by Benjamin Libet
• Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia
• Break Music: Cold Stares by peez | SoundCloud

David and Tamler dive back into the Bible, this time to the perplexing and poetic Book of Job. What does this book have to say about the theodicy, the problem of evil? Why does Job (and his children) have to suffer so much just so God can prove a point to Satan? Are the speeches of Job's friends meant to be convincing? Does Job capitulate in the end? Does God contradict himself in the last chapter? What’s the deal with Elihu? So many questions, not as many answers – maybe that's why it's such a classic.

Plus, "transhumanism" – dystopian wet dream or perfect moral system of the future based on logic, reason, and code? (Always code).

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Links:

• Environmentalists are Wrong: Nature Isn’t Sacred and We Should Replace It - Transhumanist Wager
• Transhumanism - Wikipedia
• The Book of Job (New International Version)
• Book of Job - Wikipedia
• Who really wrote the Book of Job? - Jewish World - Haaretz - Israel News | Haaretz.com
• Satan - Wikipedia
• Morriston, W. (1996). God's answer to Job. Religious studies, 32(3), 339-356.
• Misery | The New Yorker