Right here. One of our no I don't think it's a very fine very very tired. They are quite quite how they gather some very hard. One of the goals of the short program but here's Larry bode well for the whole world like just don't know where to find a way to get through for his Nobel laureate. But he also wrote for the literary magazine you and your best friends. Restaurant a Rhodes Scholar Rhodes things that someone you know that's good for going to the rose I would want to know how beautiful that you know more marketable for the Eurostar with here. We have a sort of far greater growth of royal landscape looking at writers and George or more stuff. Those are your friends and yes it was over here a little more about Morgan was gracious way to order discoveries of stories about the relationship of the body of the boy feeling about our individual identity about vision about jury members and intelligent well read whether or not there is now more of a river older brother publication The Washington Post and more low order which is part of the right order and I think they're just getting under serious strike out prize for one more to figure out what the best metal moment of the morning will help me. Well for now you know what we mean for what we are right thank you Carol. It all out or or what we want you to a. Thank you so much for that incredibly kind introduction. It's a tremendous honor to be here at Georgia Tech it really is make you so much everyone for coming. First and everyone hear me OK. It's the mike is not OK It's just that wild then just talk much much louder than I'm used to. So the time and if and if I start getting quiet just yell at me. Raise your hand and I'll remember to talk loudly. I talk is the future of science as art or or what scientists can can learn from artists one thousand nine hundred French afternoon. Kanye West much of what I'll be talking about tonight comes from my book but I know you all. Very disappointing to know that I won't be talking for an hour by Gertrude Stein. I know you all wanted so much to hear that instead I'll be talking at least in the beginning about this guy. Probably the most influential chef of all time he's Emeril and Rachel Ray and Marvet Talley all rolled into one. He was basically invented the idea of modern fancy French when you go to any fancy restaurant especially a fancy French restaurant and you're getting variations on his cuisine you walk into any fancy restaurant. And the chef Scott is book shelf and the book with pride of honor is this cookbook he wouldn't one thousand and three which which as I say basically laid out the still so enduring principles of French technique of French call unary technique. He was a cook at the hotel retsina basically invented the idea of ritzy food. What was his big contribution his first big innovation his first big call innovation was his emphasis on B.L. stock. He says right there on the very first page of his cookbook he says if you've got a good stock cooking is easy if you've got a bad stock you're wasting your time. Get out of the kitchen his recipe for stock was very straightforward he took all the stuff chefs used to throw out so veal bones bits of beef some scraps of carrot a little onion. But then a big stock pot with cold water any simmered for twelve hours and you clarify and reduce it down but the basic point is trying to extract all those need juices from the bones and bits of meat and get that into the broth and you clarifying and you kind of concentrated so now you've got this very meaty broth and you can do the same thing for before chicken bones or fish bones or even vegetables but but the basic point was trying to extract all those meaty flavors from whatever leftover scraps of protein you were using So that's his first big innovation was this emphasis on stock putting stock in everything. His second big innovation. Again a very straightforward process. It's called the glazing and what you do is you take a piece of protein chicken breast flaming yawn piece of fish but no hot pan. You know high cast iron pan on this nonstick stuff and you let the piece of meat burn you like the protein burn you know you really want to get it's hard to see but those kind of comma lies bits burn bits of protein stuck to the bottom of the pan the dishwasher is off in the corner grimacing because the pants are disaster but it's coffee as you listen for the sound of sizzling and then you wait some more and then you flip the piece of protein over see it on the other side. And so now the dish is a complete disaster just just just a brief aggression. The reason searing works the reason this is all making is drool right now this this piece of meat. The reason those kind of karma lies things most people say well you see a piece of meat to see on the juices right you know that's that's when most cooks will say you see or for lemon yawn so that all the juice is trapped inside is actually the wrong when you syrup piece of beef the sound of sizzling is all that meat juice evaporating. And it will get later to why exactly it. It is juice here but but it's not because you see on the juices But so anyway back to these burn bits of protein so so so now the meat is cooked in the pan. It's covered in these burn bits of protein. The dishwasher is very upset you take the piece of protein out take the flame and I let it rest. Here's where you take your stock the stock which is warming on the stove you and your little full of veal stock or beef stock or whatever to the pan take your wooden spoon and you scrape up all those burn bits of protein stuck to the bottom the Pan Am most back into the sauce you add your half stick of butter emulsify that in the sauce and voila. That's a classic Brown pan sauce that's classic French technique that's really all it is a stock. Plus burn me in a pan and all those burn bits of protein get them back in the sauce and that's basic French technique. That was a school fees big call in a big call unary innovation. Now and when it's Kofi has started cooking this way the hotel rates in Paris. That in one thousand century it was an opinion for people is a revelation people never had food this intense this complex this rich this nuanced it was the best food anyone had ever tasted. And in the question I think is why why why are we still cooking the way it's go if you told us to cook. If as Brianna said the invention of a new dish means more to human happiness the discovery of a new star and its cover has made lots of people very happy since he rose cookbook and three but but but why we still cooking this way why why does veal stock taste so good why do these brown pan sauces why are they still enduring in fancy French restaurants. And I think it's an interesting question and it's a question of first glance doesn't make a lot of sense. You know Scofield started cooking at the Hotel Ritz scientists thought they had the tongue pretty much solved. They talked about these four basic a sensation sweet sour salty and bitter. These are the four classic tastes and stations are all there back to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and that was it was the first century modality of the tongue that scientists thought they'd really figured out. But now think of a deal struck in terms of these four classic tastes in stations sweet sour salty and better or a thing about a bit you know a brown varnish pants. It's not going to be particularly sweet. Or sour. Unless you burn the bones and Scofield says Don't burn the bones it won't be bitter. You know maybe have a little salt in it but again you don't have too much salt this coffee says if you can notice the salt if you notice that it's salty about it too much so. So why then does that taste so good why does a demi gloss they reduce to be all stock. Why is it so delicious to us what about that works on the tongue tricks the tongue into thinking it's so delicious to get the answer to this question to solve the mystery of a Schofield is deliciousness you have to travel halfway around the world to Tokyo Japan where in one thousand is one thousand zero seven Japanese chemist include I Kate is eating a bowl of dosh. It's a jap. Broth made from dried kelp and he's in his bowl of dosh he and he has this revelation he realizes that this bowl of dosh he doesn't taste sweet sour salty or better doesn't taste going to be for classic taste sensations that Aristotle's always going on about or that scientists think they've been to the tongue by seven scientists and even put these for case in stations eyes of the tongue so sweet was in front but it was in back and sour and salty were on the side but but but I can see this ball of dosh and he says well you know this doesn't taste sweet sour salty or better to explain the taste of dosh. He talks about a fifth place in station which he calls the taste of a mommy or the taste of deliciousness he's very excited by this idea he thinks you know it's potentially important in spends the next five years distilling down buckets and buckets of dosh trying to figure out the secret ingredient that makes this soup. So so so mommy so delicious eventually discovers that it's a taste of glutamate especially including its converted to chemically acid it's unraveled a good inmate is converted to a form of the tongue can taste. He then you know he's he's thrilled by this idea he thinks this is a seminal seminal discovery in the history of taste. He then goes around to all the great cuisines of the world sees that they also seem to have this clue tannic acid present and find that sure enough it's everywhere. For example fish sauce why do so many cuisines from the Garam of ancient Rome to Modern Vietnamese we want to rely on fish sauce. Well fish sauce being run in Job is good and I should add is the most prevalent amino acid in life so so it's you know it's in it's an inch ovies. It's in you know it's in any age cheese parmesan cheese is full of glutamate because it's milk which is full of good men and you aged the cheese you convert the glutamate into. Into chemical acid which the form the tongue can taste. It's very hungry you may Marmite. That disgusting British yeast extract spread. That's got more that's that's a good chemical acid speedballs like you know mommy speedballs got more and more going to make acid per gram in any other processed food in the world. That have been a ripe tomato in a green tomatoes that are ripe tomatoes much more blue tannic acid. So so so now I Kate is thrilled by this discovery you know it's in soya sauce. Why do Japanese people. Why do you. Why does Japanese food you you take a raw thing for off a switch because it hasn't been cooked glutamate hasn't been raveled it's not it's not in the proper mommy form but but because the tongue craves umami it's got like a theorizes that's what you dip it in source sauce which because it's fermented soybeans is full of chemical. So all these kind of weird calling every habits that these cultures have invented. I kid thinks he can begin to explain by talking about tannic acid by talking about this fifth a sensation. That's not sweet sour salty or better. So so he's he's thrilled by this discovery he thinks this is a very interesting discovery in the history of taste is waiting for Stockholm to call with his Nobel Prize he's come up with a fifth a sensation he's proved Aristotle didn't have it all and science reacts the science the timer acts with complete and utter disinterest. No one pays attention to his fifth and his his fifth a sensation who mommy is an artifact that's completely ignored. Scientists say well you know maybe the few scientists who pay attention to it. Say Well maybe that's interesting for Japanese food maybe it's relevant for sources but soon they can explain parmesan cheese or pasta or veal stock that's that's this you know we're ready we're you know have a tongue works. We said there's no room on the tongue for a fifth place and station tongues taken up with these four different taste sensations. So for the entire twentieth century. The idea of a mom with the idea of tannic acid is essentially ignored what interests you know to note is that food companies aren't so skeptical. They take monosodium glutamate which is going to make acid in a command of the salt which isn't. Table form and start putting in everything from Campbell Soup to nuts to chicken being includes too cheap chinese food to any you can think of they take his his his little chemical M.S.G. and realize that this is a real shortcut to making things taste to Mommy or delicious. So so they're not quite so skeptical they realize that I Kate is on to something interesting here. And of course who to make acid and the mommy also explains this as I said before. That Sears sake has less juice in it than I steak which hasn't been properly seared in the reason we think it tasteless year is because just looking at that makes us drool the idea of all that when Mommy knows a mommy flavors. Turns out salivary glands and so when you bite into a juicy steak what you're actually tasting isn't meat use your taste in your own drool. And that's that's what makes it taste so delicious it's Pavlovian Q You see the Tanach acid unravelled and I see that steak and yourself against open up and the steak seems juicy or even though it's actually less juicy it just. You know saliva can be delicious but you know. But of course this can be explained by talking about unraveled protein this essential what you're tasting is all that protein when it's cooked in a hot dry pan. It's unraveled convert into a form the tongue can taste. So fast forward to the year two thousand some research of the universe in Miami going to the human genome they see it looks like a taste receptor and they pull it out clone it except it doesn't respond to sweet sour salty or bitter which is kind of bewildering. And say well maybe we should just tested for this thing called a mommy for who tend to gasify that sure enough it responds only responsive to telecast did they call the mom or stepped on of my Kheda a couple years later other teams in the exact same thing find a second receptor a second mom or separate called the mom to her scepter these things are expressed all over the tongue all over the mouth. Many scientists now believe that this is actually the most. And sation and seems to modular the other forty sensations in retrospect of course this makes perfect sense. You know we're sacks of protein and water ourselves so we always need an amino acid refill and make sense of the tongue would learn to love what the body needs but but so so so you know. Did you finally know a hundred years later people actually justified. I Kate is crazy apotheosis and found the actual molecular substrate the there are separate encodes it's this this fifty sensation but it was interesting to me is to go back and this allows you to appreciate its coffee is begin to you know you think about feel stock when you make a stock what you're basically doing is taking all that glutamate in the bones and bits of meat and by boiling it for twelve hours converting into a form of tongue can taste when you see I mean a pan and cover a pain with burned it's a protein all those burn bits of protein are densities with mommy densities equal to make acid and when you combine the two it's this Rich. You know mommy bomb and that's would taste so delicious. You know of course the butter doesn't hurt either. But but but but the essential innovation is coping essential innovation is getting as much of Mommy on the plate as possible and that's why it's food literally tasted so delicious. The other interesting thing I think is is that. How a scruffy came up with this. We'll call it a discovery. You know he tells young chefs he says don't trust the chemists with all due respect all the chemists out there. You know he says trust your tongue taste in taste again by paying attention to your tongue by paying exquisite attention to it that's how you'll figure out how it works and the A was that exquisite sensitivity which allowed a scope here to in a sense figure how the tongue worked a century before scientists would would would verify his recipes. So that's a a case study in the book that's that's that's one thing it's got he discovered he discovered some other things too but those are in the book but I mustn't give your flavor of the kind of arguments I make in the book. The the kind of way. I tried to juxtapose science and art. The bigger strategy I used in the book is is trying to figure out why our works you know why why does this Jackson Pollock paint dripped on a canvas. Why is it meaningful Why do we pay millions of dollars for that in hanging museums or or this Mark Rothko which is just blobs of color or synthetic cubism What is it about this art that that that mesmerizes us that we find beautiful or at least interesting. And the basic idea. The simple assumption that I'm making is a great art isn't an accident that it works for a reason and that by reverse engineering the F.B.I. trying to figure out by trying to figure out what exactly excites the visual cortex. You know what exactly a Jackson Pollock how Jackson Pollock excites visual cortex you can learn something interesting at the visual cortex so by reverse engineering the art. You can learn about the brain. You know it's not an accident. We're still reading Hamlet or to the lighthouse or in search of lost time that this art endures for a reason. I'd like to illustrate this point by by talking about music. And we'll begin by talking about you know what is music. The old theory of music and this again goes all the back to ancient Greeks have played about. We'll call the melody theory. It's a lovely idea in the idea is that music is a sequence of pretty notes that somehow fit the brain talked about sound waves that vibrating is need geometrical ratio so they brought order to the soul restored harmony to the soul and that's what defined it pretty know it was literally the physics of the sound waves the geometry of this. You know patterns of vibrating air and that composers and music simply took these pretty notes and arranged them to a rhythm and into a sequence from music was it was these pretty notes arranged in a pattern. And it was melody and all these nice things. It's a lovely theory. It makes lots of in. Of sense. We think about music in terms of pretty notes and pretty sounds but it just happens to be completely wrong. The new theory of music is called the pattern theory we'll call it the pattern theory and we're going to illustrate this using Igor Stravinsky who's looking very cool there with his sunglasses. But before we can talk about the. The pattern here we have to do a brief aggression to the science of sound. It's actually a gorgeous system in the brain. You literally have these hair cells inside your ear each of these hair cells is to like the keys on a piano to specific frequencies of sound so when a sound wave enters your ear it bends one of these hair cells the hair cells band and then sends. Electronic signal and action potential on to the brain saying I've heard this sound I've heard this wavelength. This is what I know. So so you know it's a lovely system. The problem with this system. The problem with having Fallon's of hair cells each of which is to do specific frequency is that it creates a you know a storm of input a cough any of input any at any given moment you know from listening to a song on your i Pod to the sound of my voice to anything you can think of to walking down the street your brain is being bombarded with thousands and thousands of hair cells firing a signal saying I've heard this note I've heard this pitch. I've heard this sound wave. It's you know it's completely overwhelming there's just way too much information and way too much stimulus bombarding your brain. So the question is how does the brain make sense of all this sensory noise it's literally sensory noise and the answer is as so often happens with the brain to use the shortcut it looks for patterns. It tries to make sense of the noise by looking for a signal by looking for the one pattern they can use to predict the note that will come next and kind of filter this can cough an E. In order to make sense of it. Music in a sense hijacks the system. It gives the brain lots of information but also tease it with a pattern and. And it's that pattern which makes music so interesting. It's a search for the pattern that makes music so interesting. So one of the best examples of this was was done by Leonard Meyer in his book a motion in music and he took a symphony minor by Beethoven each other with Beethoven does. He begins a symphony by introducing a pattern the the the tonic tree AD D. the melodic pattern the hook. You know that's what you hum. So he begins the symphony with this pattern but then into something very interesting. He spent the next twenty five minutes completely avoiding the pattern. He'll suggest a minor he'll come up real close to it kind of imply this pattern he's cheated with the beginning but he doesn't repeat it. He makes your brain search for kind of beg for this pattern he just teased you with so until the end of the symphony you know twenty five twenty six minutes later at the pattern return safe and sound. It's the tonic ending the release. You know the Hollywood happy ending. So so so in this sense. Music is a form has been depends upon its violation you have to give the brain a pattern and then avoid the pattern and then the end come back with a happy ending and it's that basic cognitive set up in music uses over and over and over again you give the brain something to look for you know. Here it is and then you don't give it to it and then it comes back and that's the release of a chorus or tonic ending in a symphony. And we're going to explore this idea a bit with the Rite of Spring. Now interest me about the Rite of Spring when I first heard about it was that it caused a riot. When it was permitted in Maine one nine hundred thirteen. You know literally cause a violin right yet old ladies with their canes hitting each other. The priest and police were called Gertrude Stein was there actually and described you know the bloody mess but literally the audience sort of throwing things at the stage and hitting each other. It was you know serious business. Now if you think of it you think of the Russian Ballet now but but when the Rite of Spring from here. That's actually what happened and that fan. I mean you know what is it about the Rite of Spring that could cause a violent riot. Why would a instrument you know what instrumental music cause an audience a sophisticated audience to do that. And I think the answer in turn just to patterns Stravinsky said the sheer daring is the motive force of the greatest artist and with the Rite of Spring I think what servants you really wanted to do was and was Invent modern music was take all the patterns his audience and come to expect from a Russian ballet. Mysie put in a blender throw it all out. So you know that's that's that's that's also that's so one thousand century. It's the twentieth century going to play new music now. So so he took all the patterns I learned from Bach and Chopin and Wagner and say you know I've had enough of that. And so what he wanted his audience to do was was was to learn a whole new kind of pattern and learn a whole new kind of music and that's that's what he may have been doing the right of spring. So we're going to play the Aga of spring it's comes about two minutes into it. Actually when the audience started to riot. But but what I want you to listen for in the augers is it's kind it's kind of punctuating beat but every once in a while there's an extra punctuation to one of the stabbing chords and musicologist spent a lot of ink trying to figure out the pattern that can somehow explain when the extra Secada one extra punctuation will come in and no one can find the secret is that there is no secret there is no pattern there it's deliberately chaotic and this is Stravinsky's way of kind of antagonizing his audience so you know you're used to these need for four rhythms or three four or whatever. What we'll hear this is you know this is modern stuff and it makes no sense. So we'll listen to it. So that's the extra punctuation and then I've done this you know many times and I still can't get it right because I because my brain still. You know when the beats going to come in but but but that kind of chaos was was was deliberate Stravinsky didn't want to audit to be able to find the pattern right away he wanted to destabilize their assumptions about what what classical music should be or the Russian Ballet should be. But then something very interesting happened within nine months this symphony which had caused of on riot was already being hailed as a modern masterpiece Stravinsky was being literally carried out on the shoulders of the audience was being played by simply orchestras all across the world. It had become this canonical work of modernism you know being celebrated already this work that only you know nine months or a year before had caused people to throw stuff at the stage. But by one nine hundred forty the right was being used in Fantasia. So so this piece of music which caused a riot was not suitable for children. It was being used in a Disney cartoon. And that fascinated me how does a work of art. How does a work of culture go from causing a riot to two to being safe for a five year old and the answer to that is a obscure circuit of cells in the auditorium cortex called the cortical fugal network and this is a circuit of cells there mostly don't mean neurons and they've got one very interesting property. It's been mostly studied in bats the system and you can play these cells a new you know a new set of noises a new musical pattern a new whatever. And at first the cells are very confused and millimeters called a prediction error signal which is their way of saying we can't predict what know it's coming next. We don't recognise this pattern it makes no sense. And so they stop firing don't mean and then the brain gets really negative emotions very negative feeling and it's you know it's a very uncomfortable tension and it's a you know Pictionary signal it's the brain saying turn it off turn on the volume this is noise this is terrible. This is horrible god what are kids listening to nowadays. And that's basically the prediction error signal. But then something very interesting happens when you play these the same circuit of cells the same noise a few more times. Adventure the cells learn to make sense of it. They they learn to find the pattern they learn to be able to predict the note that will come next. So even though this pattern. You know five trials ago was completely foreign and seemed just like pure noise all of a sudden they're able to see the order and if they're able to detect the pattern and so then all of a sudden the No one really speaks an error signal they start to make predictions and this thing which was so unpleasant for the baths or for the person sitting in the orchestra is no longer so unpleasant and that I think is what happened with the Rite of Spring is is you have this piece of music when I was first play it in that hot humid night in Maine in hundred thirteen you had an audience full of people generating a prediction error signal saying God this is totally new it makes no sense. This is horrible unpleasant. Why did I spend money to come to the Russian Ballet and hear this garbage. And then a few more times the brain is able these this circuit of cells is able to kind of see the beauty they've been engineered into the symphony. You know Stravinsky took his time he you know he he he loved patterns he just wanted to create a whole new set of patterns and over time you know the brains of the audience the brains of people in the twentieth century were able to learn and memorize these patterns and put into his music and that's why it was all of a sudden a modern classic and that's why you know when I played the augers you guys weren't throwing stuff at the stage. So so so that's that's the that's the rite of spring more sunglasses. So so so that's that's the Rite of Spring in the quarter to feel network to the kind of you know one thing that really excites me. I think about looking at our through the prism of neuroscience is is the unexpected connections. You know you can see that a guy like Kanye West is using the same bag of tricks as Beethoven or Stravinsky they just like these guys. He gives the brain a pattern and then he avoids it and then he comes back and that's what makes the music interesting it's he hijacks the exact same system in the brain the brain's penchant for patterns. He manipulates the. Thing. And I'm going to play a track from his latest album and what I want to listen for is you know he introduced the sample. You know it's a good track Laura near a sample and then he repeats it. I think the first time. Nine times and then the pattern stops and this is you know him injecting uncertainty into his music jobs and the brains like what happened to the pattern you know he just gives his pattern where to go in the pattern returns after a five second break. So this summer. Peter seven times then it stops again. Then he comes back in a piece for twelve times now take my word for this because he wants to the whole song and it stops again and comes back but the point is he's constantly stopping and starting the pattern so. So the brain can never quite get predict you know you can never completely predict what's going to happen next. And it's that unpredictability. That makes the music so interesting you think about. You know if music. If you use it if the goal of music was just be predictable. Then the ideal piece of music would be the C. major chord playing for four time but but but that's an alarm clock on a piece of music so so you know what great music always does it give you a pattern and then force you to search for that pattern it captivates you just enough so you'll spend the next. You know two and a half minutes or twenty five minutes sitting in a chair searching for that pattern. So here's a track from the glory glory. So there's a pattern it's repeating it's repeated that's come back. So you get the point I should ask for an extra subwoofer. To get the. Because the basic point is is that the patterns constant stopping and starting and it's that engineer uncertainty that makes music and give the kind of momentum is here's a sample and you've got guts a good hook and then he stops it and it's that stopping that is so essential to the music of the pattern is repeated to be a much less interesting song. So now of course we've all heard Kanye West before he doesn't seem so of on guard anymore but it but I'm going to give you a slightly better sense of what it might have felt like in Maine one hundred thirteen when listen to a song from Girl Talk are people from a girl talk. How many. So you guys are you know going to throw stuff at the stage either for this. But but but you know if Kanye West does one or two samples girl talk will do. He'll mash up ten or twelve samples into a song and for me at least I was this track many times and it's all completely bewildering you know it's it. It just overwhelms my brain I can't figure out the patterns my poor cortical fuel network is still generous prediction error signal no matter how we come to listen to it and you know for me at least most of this track for three to four minutes. I am filled with this. This is this kind of vague uneasiness you do kind of want to throw something or get out your cane. So so here's here's a girl talk in you know see if you can actually make sense of it. See if your brain can predict what know it's going to come next. So it's it can be John you know some some people love that it for me at least it's just it's too much. I can't find the pattern and I'm never able to predict which sample is going to be spliced in next. You know so just imagine if if you just. You know here you are in Paris. You just paid to see the Russian Ballet the first act was a lovely Chopin ballet and he paid me a pretty and then all of a sudden girl talk comes on. And that was roughly equivalent to what it was like in that Persian audience in Maine one hundred thirteen. So so I'm going to end with some of the kind of grander themes of the book. Nor a science is a reduction of science. You know takes the most complex object in the known universe and tries to break into its simplest possible parts. So you don't actually exist you're just a loom of one hundred billion neurons Your lot of kindness enzymes and ion channels and cells sending scores of neurotransmitter back and forth and that's you know that's that's an essential form of description that's so important especially if you want to fix something especially when a cure a disease that's an essential way of knowing ourselves and you know one thing I tried to express in the book is us not the only way of knowing ourselves and then my hypothesis is that the mind is a bit like music. So what I mean is you can take a piece of music you can take a Beethoven symphony. And you can reduce it to its excuse me its simplest possible some as possible description so this Beethoven symphony is simply the physics of sound waves going back and forth in a room and that's interesting. You've just reduced Beethoven into a set of sound waves and yet I also think something important is lost when you just look at a complex object in these in these simple fundamental terms you know you can't explain the emotion in the beauty of the melody all the reason we listen to music in the first place are somehow lost when you just look at the sound waves and I think the mind is at the same way that well nor a science describes a brain in terms of material facts in terms of yourselves and all these parts of yourselves. This isn't how we experience the world. The truth matters we feel like a ghost now like the machine and that I think is what I mean art. You know artists have been describing experience in the terms of experience they've been a long time trying to figure out. How to take in the subjective reality this here now and compress that into a novel or a painting or a movie that's that's what great art is it takes experience and it condenses it into a work onto a canvas onto a page and you know I think no matter how how kind of. Detailed our are nervous and of explanations get in the end we don't feel like just one hundred billion neurons. You know we feel like something more like more than to some of ourselves. We've got this paradox of here's this you know fantastic science this is the science being great progress and yet the one reality can't describe with all it's so descriptions is the only reality we'll ever know. So I'm going to end with this quote from Noam Chomsky It's quite possible overwhelmingly probable one might guess there will always and more about human life in personality from novels in art than from scientific psychology. Thank you everyone very very much for listening. I would love to take questions. If there are questions with the girl talk. So thank you thank you. And yes. One. Well you know there's any gradation in pop music has to err more on the side of you can't have people having too powerful a picture never saying I want to play it on the radio or else they're going to turn off the radio quick so I think you know I think all you know all music like so much art has to kind of walk this fine line between being new and injecting some unpredictability. And it's not you know often you know you're going to find a trace of a pattern but there's some unpredictability present in it you know so like Kanye West is it that's a clip that song Cruz got a very short Scotto pattern that he repeats a lot and you know over and over again and yet at the same time he deliberately interrupts the pattern at these key moments. So so obviously pop music you know Stravinsky want to made it on the top forty radio. You know you've got to kind of court in seduce your audience just enough to be popular. And yet at the same time you can't be too boring. You can't be too predictable or else your music you know other elevator music. So so so it is a fine line of seducing the audience and yet also being a little demented also kind of you know making them hurt a bit. I need to in the book about how in order to be remembered something has to be seared into the memories that we burn it's got to hurt. And I think that's a little true that the great art the songs we really remember and return to over and over again at least for me is is the art that hurts a little bit. It's a little tougher for the brain to understand that's why so many great artists like Stravinsky or Bob Dylan or their Mones do have this very antagonistic relationship with their audience you know Bob Dylan cause not a riot. But he got booed and and screamed at too and I think it's because he was always trying to challenge his audience to you know to make them learn something new. And that's a crucial component of great art certainly there are lots of great songs which which which engage with uncertainty a little bit less but I do think that basic set up of giving someone a pattern and then tweaking it so so so the brains a little unsure is going to come next is is a pretty fundamental feature of of just but all music. Yes. Yeah. Yeah that's a that's a that's a very good question. You know I you know. People I think just just from the picture an audience. I think people draw the line differently. Some people love girl talk I find Girl Talk a little too abrasive some people find Kanye West abrasive. Some people still find the right of spring abrasive. So you know I think there's there's a large gradient in terms of where exactly people draw the line in terms of just how challenging you can be number one and you know I never want to study showing that most people after I do the age of eighteen one thousand people become pretty static and music they like and the vast majority of people are kind of set in their ways and they're not going to you know always and love love this new genre which is just emerged you kind of stuck as an eighteen year old. And i Pod in going to change that much after so it's kind of a depressing fact to me but but but in terms of artists and you know I think I think the question is more about artists and Vango And you know how how how ridiculous you can be in that sense. Again it's the same thing and you have to walk a very fine line. I think there is obviously this this tradition of of crazy artists of Maginnis is from Vango to Coleridge's even in my book I talk about Virginia Woolf and I think that it's easy to kind of get seduced into a slightly romantic version of things that that there's some neat correlation between being crazy and creating a masterpiece but I do thing one way all of these artists so many as artists I should say. Kind of turned turn their mental illnesses mental difficulties like like Bangor Wolf into great art was that the mental illness made them exclusively sensitive just like a scruffy. You know Wolf as a great line about how she's feeling her brain like a parrot to see if it's right that will be exquisite by September. And be. She was always watching out for the signs or mental illness to return when she had this bipolar attack again she was always paying attention to her brain and in Him It forced her to be introspective. So so so in that sense that's that's how I often see her lation ship between madness and creativity is that it almost forces you to you know to pay close attention to this three pounds of white stuff you have in your head. Yes. Yeah I wish I had a good answer for that. To be completely honest is a pretty idiosyncratic process. I wish I had some really rigorous way of saying I chose women and not Powell I mean you know a lot of people on the floor actually had a poem they want to find a time to get this great short story which about how you can win in poker basically and you win a poker by precisely imitating the facial expressions of someone else and he talks about mirroring the other person and now scientists talk about mirror neurons drive these cells which when you see someone else smile these cells light up as if you were smiling. So it's you know it's a very potent poet have been like. That's cool I wrote about that but you know a lot of the stuff left in the cutting room floor by my ex an editor who realized I you know. Need to make the book a little readable too. You know to be honest. These are just my favorite artists. Once I had the initial idea I became one this really annoying people who would make fun of I walk into MOMA and mutter about the visual cortex and I was looking at a rock or Pollack you know I couldn't help but see the world in terms of relationship once once I'd had this idea in the lab. So so then I was just a matter of kind of willing it down to the people who I felt I could tell the most convincing argument making was convincing argument for Intel the most can tell us anything stories about. So so it really wasn't a particularly rigorous process I'm ashamed to say it was more just these are people I love to read these people. I wanted to read and write about. And these are also I think people one thing I was looking out for and was quite surprised by thing was was was all these artists how closely connected they worked the science their time you know you have Gertrude Stein her first published research writing was was a science paper. She worked in William James lab going to med school for four years you know Walt Whitman read the phonology the brain science textbooks of his day he corresponded with a with the with with most eminent a neurologist of the time George L.. Described her novels a set of experiments in real life so so these are all you know if you read Darwin the day he came out. So so these are all artists who who to my pleasant surprise were incredibly involved in the science of their day. And in retrospect was very naive of me to assume otherwise you know these these these weren't the lectures and I was taking our twenty first century culture wars are these very discrete categories we have now you study art you study science and imposing at on the one nine hundred centuries earlier twentieth century were such neat categories didn't exist you know you have Coleridge suddenly going to chemistry experiments to get new metaphors. So so so I was also science a very roundabout way to answer question I was also looking for artists who in a sense war. You know were interrogating and involved with and in dialogue with the science of their day. Yes. The question was exactly how to get pleasure from music from from from these cells and being able to predict patterns was was that that I got into the mangle or what was. Yeah. Yeah. The basic question is is you know how how how do these patterns which which which which composers use and tease us with how does I generate emotions and and pleasure or unpleasant feelings in the brain that said there's actually a very hot topic in neuroscience right now as is trying to figure out how you know what exactly are emotions representations of music is actually a great way to study that and for example people thoughts of work on don't mean. Generates lots of these emotions it's kind of the neurotransmitter of emotion. And people have done lots of work kind of figure out how exactly the brain's penchant for patterns translates into these feelings. So for example schizophrenia no one quite knows what's good for any is but it seems to be involved the dopamine system and there's lots of work on exactly why people schizophrenia but these are Torrie Wilson ations and these you know strong feelings and it seems to be because they're not able to find these patterns we all take for granted in the world this basic ability to kind of figure out causation correlation. And that seems to be a result of me in large part they we struggle with that because we don't mean system is just regulated and the same system is also at work you know you you you walk into a casino you play the slots. Why are the slots addictive Well the slots take advantage of that same penchant for patterns because they're you know they're completely random your dopey neurons can never quite figure out when you can get quarters out of the thing. So so you just sit there and kind of. Plug it in over and over again your likes and Pavlovian mouse waiting for your random reinforcement you know every time this quarter's come the bells go off you get this rush of don't mean this rush of pleasure. And so you keep on plugging corders. So so music kind of works in the same principle of you get a release or so people think at the present moment get a release when the prediction is fulfilled and one of the one the interesting kind of quirks is the biggest release and this goes back to power of love comes from an unexpected reward. So so so the best feeling doesn't come from the thing you can actually predict but it comes from like the slot from from their ward that is a bit unpredictable. So when the pattern returns and Kanye West song. Excuse me don't know quite know when it's going to come back and that's what makes it even more exciting to the brain. But but but at the same time there's this dance between prediction error signals you know the make you feel unpleasant they do make you pay attention. It's the brain's way of saying you don't know what's going on. Focus on it. Of course most of the time we react then just turn off the radio but in theory the goal the signal is to kind of make you perk up a little bit and try to figure out what's going on but but but again it's a very hot topic right now trying to figure out the computational mechanisms and there are some great mathematical models of this that allow doping to actually be such an efficient prediction and some of the coolest models actually come from twenty year old computer science programs temporal difference reinforcement models but it but you know it's just kind of this first glimpse into how the brain takes the coffin of reality and kind of breaks it into short patterns that you can then use and build on and emotions are simply your brain's way of saying here's a pattern you can make sense of and here's a pattern you can't. Yes. M.S.G.'s in everything. Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing that just take owes us so much. We just you know the soma so to speak with the thing that just is so pleasurable we can't help but just mainline it. I mean that's that's that's a that's a good question is kind of that and there's a brave new world aspect anything anytime you talk about the neural substrate of pleasure because then you can just in certain electrode theoretically and you and bless you know and of course was discovered when a thread an electrode into the brains of rats and they know what they were kind of stimulating but the rats were just so to delay it end up dying of thirst. I mean there was water right in a cage but they never wanted to move. They were just you know it was just such pure ecstasy that lets the nucleus accumbens and domain and all the rest but but you know that's that's a that's a that's a it's a very good question. I think one of the saving grace and they're couple optimistic reasons why why we shouldn't expect it happen any time soon. The first as we're all individuals is that it's kind of shocking how different our tastes are. And so you know your girl talk is is is my riot. You know that it's very tough to imagine things but you start talking about arts like in like like music tough to imagine some perfect song that would plug into everyone's auditory cortex and cortical people network so perfectly we just love it. You know Riyadh is probably as close as you'll get nowadays but but you know. But again that's that's great for summer and then everyone knows it and then you don't listen to it too often and that is also reason Second I think optimistic reason why I went back and. That any time soon. Is because we do get bored with so if we get bored with me. Ana and that's why you need great Are you need you know new art to come along kind of refresh your brain and challenge you all over again. That's why you need an oven guard the kind of force you to say you know to pay attention and make sense these production error signals to kind of challenge your brain to learn something new and so I think you know even if there was some perfect song that was invented or some perfect taste. Chances are we get bored with it pretty quickly. You know pleasure gets old pretty fast. What's even more exciting to the brain then then pleasure is is figuring something out is kind of having the pattern slide into place. So so so even if the perfect song was invented to be great for a summer and then one the next perfect song. Sure I'm I'm I have no doubt some genius will make a fortune. You know I mean. Speaking of genius with i Tunes the i Tunes Genius Bar I mean that's kind I mean for me it's kind of eerie. How how you pick a track and then it pulls up the five tracks you don't think you like and chance are for them. You do like so so clearly we do. There is some algorithm out there that Steve Jobs happens to have found already which which we think we can kind of reverse engineer our tastes so so you know as idiosyncratic as we all are also oddly predictable you know to sign on to Amazon and you never have to think about which books to buy ever again. Amazon can tell you so so so there clearly are these patterns that that these. Companies have have learned had a kind of used to use and tweak and pry open our wallets with. So I mean that's that's that's definitely possible at the same time you know I'm always surprised things on my favorite songs because I'm no longer a teen I do less of this and I should but but my favorite songs the unexpected songs that kind of the bed really hit me with the newness and at first a little tough but then after three or four listens. They become you know just just really enjoyable. So you know so so I do kind of dread a world where we're not stumbling into things which generally complete Pictionary stay close by. Just listen to the i Tunes genius menu. You know I listen to the same generic indie music that everyone else listens to you know the same we all have an i Pods. But but but there is something serendipitous about discovering something completely new and you know and that completely challenges you and at first is making a throw something at the stage but then over time becomes you know your favorite song and so I worry that that might be lost if we just all went to what Steve Jobs told us. Listen to. What he also wrote a lot of clout with the. But for very much for going for wonderful talk and forget all of us here thanks to a.