Your Phone May Not Be the Problem & The Puzzles That Break Your Brain - SYSK Choice

Have you ever held a pet up to a mirror and wondered why they don't seem to recognize themselves? Humans usually figure it out very young, but most animals never do. Yet a surprising handful of species appear capable of recognizing their own reflection—a clue that scientists use to explore one of the most fascinating questions in biology: self-awareness. https://www.livescience.com/4272-elephant-awareness-mirrors-humans.html Smartphones have become the villains of modern life. We blame them for distraction, anxiety, shortened attention spans, poor sleep, and endless scrolling. But is the phone itself really the problem? Or are some activities on our phones far more harmful than others? Dr. Faye Begeti, a neurologist, neuroscientist, and researcher at Oxford University Hospitals, says we've been focusing on the wrong question. In our conversation, she explains what the latest research reveals about how smartphones affect the brain, why some forms of phone use can actually be beneficial, and how to build healthier digital habits without throwing your device into a lake. She is author of The Phone Fix: The Brain-Focused Guide to Building Healthy Digital Habits and Breaking Bad Ones (https://amzn.to/3yJUhIM). Paradoxes have a way of making your brain stop and say, "Wait a minute..." If someone says, "I always lie," are they telling the truth? If not, then maybe they are. These strange logical puzzles have fascinated philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists for centuries because they expose flaws in how we think and force us to see the world from a different perspective. George Szpiro, journalist, mathematician, and author of Perplexing Paradoxes: Unraveling Enigmas in the World Around Us (https://amzn.to/4aEASGo), joins me to explore some of the most fascinating paradoxes ever conceived and explain why wrestling with impossible questions can actually make you a better thinker. Learning to juggle might seem like little more than a party trick. But researchers have discovered that mastering this surprisingly challenging skill can create measurable changes in the brain. In fact, a few days of practice may do more for your mind than you would ever expect. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091016114055.htm PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: For a limited time, when you purchase a new Pocket Hose Ballistic, you'll get a FREE 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a FREE thumb drive nozzle! Just text SYSK to 64000 AIR DOCTOR: Head to ⁠https://AirDoctorPro.com⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get $250 off select AirDoctor air purifiers, including the 3500, 4000, and 5500 models. Plus, you’ll receive a free 3year warranty! RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: With the Dell Pro laptop powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, no matter how many interruptions you have, your laptop won’t be one of them. With battery that’s optimized for the way you work, and built-in intelligence that quiets distractions the moment you’re trying to focus, your tech won’t slow you down. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Dell.com/Dell-Pro⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, what happens when your dog or cat sees themselves in a mirror? Then, there's a lot of concern over how much people use their cellphones. Should we be concerned?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  So I've got some stats here for you. So the average person picks up their phone around 80 times per day, and the average screen time is around 3 to 4 hours. So that's around 25% of our waking time.

• 1:00Mike Carruthers?

  Also, the benefits of learning to juggle, and they're pretty impressive, and understanding paradoxes. They are weird and confusing, and they make you think.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  For example, the liar's paradox. If I tell you I'm a liar, I always tell lies. So when I tell you I always tell lies, I actually said the truth, and that's a paradox.

• 1:25Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 1:31Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:56Speaker 04

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

• 3:09Mike Carruthers?

  Hello. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Here's something I think every pet owner has done at some point, and that is to put your pet in front of a mirror, or hold a mirror up to their face, and see what their reaction is. And chances are, the reaction is disappointing. Because it turns out that elephants, apes, dolphins, and of course, humans, are the only animals with the natural ability to recognize themselves in a mirror. Research scientist Diana Reese explains that it's a trait common to animals with large, complex brains, and social lives. Along with self-recognition, these animals are also capable of empathy and altruism.

• 3:54Mike Carruthers?

  So what do other animals see? Well, birds and fish tend to think their reflection is another bird or fish. And the reason most cats and dogs usually don't react much is because their sense of smell is so keen that an odorless image just doesn't really interest them much. And that is something you should know.

• 4:19Mike Carruthers?

  If you're like most people, you're probably on your phone a lot. Talking, texting, or doing something else. Drive down any street and you'll see a lot of other people on their phones a lot, especially young people. And I know there's been this outcry of concern about how people are addicted to their phones, that we're isolating ourselves, that we should be more present and mindful and be in the moment. And if we always have our phones in front of our face while the whole world is passing you by. Well, maybe. But there is some research into this that I think you will find enlightening. And here to share it is Fay Baghetti. She's a practicing neurology doctor and neuroscientist at Oxford University Hospitals,

• 5:03Mike Carruthers?

  and author of a book on this topic titled "The Phone Fix." Hi Fay, thanks for being here today.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 5:11Mike Carruthers?

  So there does seem to be a lot of, I guess, judging going on, that people make judgments about people who are always on their phone. "Oh, see, she's always on her phone, he's always on his phone. Can't they get off the phone?" That there's something wrong with that. And I have to admit, I've made those judgments about some people myself. And because it does seem to be concerning that if you're on your phone, you're not here in the moment with me.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I think it's important not to be too judgmental when you see somebody on their phone. And it all depends on what they're doing. We all lead increasingly busy lives. You know, we have blurred boundaries between work and rest. There are many working parents trying to pick up their kid up from school, trying to do the online shop, answering an email. And they may not necessarily have a choice in that matter. I mean, ideally, we would all love to relax and be in the moment. But I think it's important to understand that it's not the phones themselves, and there may be forces beyond people's control.

• 6:19Mike Carruthers?

  Okay, well, I get that. But here's what I've always thought is, if you're on your phone a lot, then you're not doing something else. If you're spending a lot of your day texting, or playing Candy Crush, or whatever you're doing, then you're not engaging in like, real life. But then again, I don't really know how much of the time people spend on their phone. Do you?

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I've got some stats here for you. So the average person picks up their phone around eighty times per day. Some studies may even say up to a hundred times per day. And the average screen time is around three to four hours. So that's around twenty five percent of our waking time, assuming we all sleep for eight hours. But I mean, these are just averages and I I think it's important, rather than focusing just on screen time, it's important to look at what people are doing, where they're doing it and why they're doing it. And if I explain a bit by what I mean by that is that if you, let's

• 7:26Speaker 02

  say, commute to work and you listen to a podcast, that's an hour of screen time. If you um do a workout using an app on your phone, that's another hour of screen time. If you speak to somebody, the the screen time adds up. So I think it's more important to think about what you're doing, where and why you're doing it. And a big part of what comes up in the scientific research is intentionality, to be really intentional with your time. And and what many people find problematic is those unintentional, short, automatic checks that they do.

• 8:06Mike Carruthers?

  One of the concerns I think people have about phone use is how intrusive it is, how you will see people together, walking down the street together. So they're, you know, they've made plans to be together. And they're each on their phone doing something else that has nothing to do with the other person. Or or you can be out to dinner with someone and their phone rings and all of a sudden whoever is on the other end of that phone is more important than you are. I mean, it's it seems rude, but but it it's disrupting life.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  So I've been writing and researching this book for over four years, reading scientific studies, and that's given me a really great opportunity to look at and analyse people's behaviour. And actually, it is a very, very tiny minority that are actually with people and on their phone. I find that not to be the case at all. And I think if you do see that, what happens is that our brain tends to have something called a confirmation bias, where if we worry about something, if we think about something a lot, then we're more likely to notice it in our, in our environment. So we're not, you know, objective observers

• 9:21Speaker 02

  of the world. We are very, very subjective. And some really good examples to do with that, that if you buy a car, suddenly, all you see on the road is cars of the same make and model, because it relates to you and your thoughts and your opinions and what kind of car you have. So I think part of what we might see, you know, when we see young people, is somewhat a judgmental, and it reflects many people's opinions and our concerns about technology.

• 9:55Mike Carruthers?

  It sounds like, if I'm reading you right, it sounds like having researched this, you're not that concerned about this. The outcry that we hear from people about people are spending too much time on their phone, that is not a concern you share, right?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm, I think we are overly concerned. I think we got very, very excited when technology was released, and we were very, very pro-technology. Technology should be integrated into absolutely everything. And I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way, that we're now very anxiety-driven, and we feel that technology has caused a lot of problems. And I think we could do with just coming back to the centre. So the way I see it, there's certainly many, many challenges with technology. Phones can certainly be habit-forming, and they can be very distracting, depending on how people use them. But it's

• 10:56Speaker 02

  not the case that the situation cannot be salvaged, or it is outside our control.

• 11:02Mike Carruthers?

  So where's the line? Like, what's reasonable use and what's not? I mean, how do you decide if is this a problem worth addressing? Or this is just life?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  So I think people, this has to be done at an individual level. There is no figure for screen time that comes out in scientific research that I can prescribe for everybody. Some people certainly spend a lot of time on screens and it has no adverse impact on them. And some people are negatively impacted despite not spending very much time at all. It all comes down to what you're accessing. Are you accessing content that's detrimental to you? And there are some things in the literature that show a really negative effect. And those things are accessing self harm content and cyber bullying. And those things are very negatively impacting on people.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  And certainly, if anybody is in that situation, they should seek help. But apart from that, it comes down to the individual. And what one person finds motivating, somebody else may well find triggering. So it's important to monitor the content you access. But the second piece of that is to make sure you have good habits. So you are accessing that content in the right situations and for the right reasons. And what I mean by that is that, I mean, you could be accessing amazing content. But if you're accessing it times that you should be focused or times that you should be sleeping or times that you should be spending time with family, that can be detrimental.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  I think it's okay to take an intentional break, to use technology, even for entertainment and to do what you want to do. But unintentional checks, either for avoidance of a difficult task or because it has become some sort of coping strategy to manage difficult emotions, can have a negative impact. It really takes some untangling at the individual level to see what people are doing that may be negative and start to adjust their pattern to a more beneficial one.

• 13:19Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about how our smartphones affect us. The truths, the myths, the science. And my guest is Dr. Faye Bagheti. She's author of the book, The Phone Fix.

• 13:31Speaker 05

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• 14:01Speaker 06

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• 14:31Mike Carruthers?

  So doctor, I wonder, and maybe you've done this, I wonder if you asked people, "Do you think your phone use is a problem?", how many people would say yes?

• 14:42Speaker 02

  This is really interesting, and certainly a lot of people do. Certainly, there was a recent UK study that people recognized that there were challenges, and even young people said that they feel that the benefits of being online do outweigh the risks. Now, there was a somewhat interesting study, actually, where they took people and they did anxiety and depression scores, and they grouped them into high risk for depression and high risk for anxiety. And they looked at how worried they were about their phone use. And what they found, that people who were very worried about their phone use tend to have these high levels of anxiety and depression.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  But what's really, really interesting is that when they measured their phone use objectively, the relationship was much, much smaller. So people who are worried about their phone use do not necessarily spend much longer on their phones than people who are not worried about their phone use. I mean, that could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but one of the things that the authors of the study determined was that the narrative, the constant anxiety and fear inducing narrative in the media may well be a mediator of why people feel so bad when they're checking their phones.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  There's nothing worse than scrolling on your phone and thinking it's going to do you harm. It ultimately ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not taking away from any of the challenges and negative impact of technology itself, but certainly the worry and the narrative in the media adds to that. And it's a little bit like in medicine, because I work as a doctor, in my medical practice, we have something called the nocebo effect, where somebody who reads the entire list of side effects in a medication is more likely to experience them. And that's not necessarily a trick or that they're lying to us. It's just the brain becomes primed

• 16:53Speaker 02

  and hypervigilant to notice all these things and then attribute them, rather than being a normal part of life, to attribute them to the medication. And it's very similar in technology. If you, we all have ups and downs with our mood and our anxiety. But if at the same time, you feel that you have really problematic habits that you cannot control and the media is constantly telling you that this is going to do you harm, that situation is being played out in your mind and it's it's creating a vicious cycle.

• 17:29Mike Carruthers?

  So one of the ways people that I see people use their phones, and I admit to doing this myself, is really like I wonder what's happened since I last checked. Who's texted me, who's emailed me, who's, who's, what's happened to this guy or that guy? That it's that anxiety of what am I missing if I don't check it? And, and a lot, and a lot of times, you, you say we look at our phones maybe eighty times a day. A lot of times it's like, in the old days, if you went to the doctor and you had to wait in the waiting room, you'd pick up a magazine and read it. Now, nobody does that. They pick up their phone and, and do stuff.

• 18:09Mike Carruthers?

  Cause it just fills the time. It's something to do because there's nothing else to do. Right?

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. And certainly in my waiting room, when I go call patients in, there will be many people on their phones. I mean, we hardly have magazines around anymore, but firstly, they're trying to fill the time and they're trying to do that with content that's relevant to them. Because I, I remember the old days with the magazines and they were outdated magazines that I had, had no interest in reading. So it's not necessarily that picking up a magazine would be a better use of my time in that situation. The second thing is that even though people are in a waiting room and waiting to see a clinician, they still feel the need to be productive. And part of that is

• 19:02Speaker 02

  due to work and life pressures. A lot of people actually bring their laptops into hospital when they're admitted and are taking meetings and

• 19:13Speaker 02

  are answering emails. And how much of that? Is it external pressure that they don't? We have created a workforce that we are not allowing people to rest and recover. So there is that external pressure, the filling the time, but also coping with difficult emotions. Because our phones have really become coping tools. And when you're anxious or frustrated in a waiting room and you maybe will, will be waiting to hear something that's not so pleasant, you can use your phone as a form of digital distraction. This is actually termed,

• 19:53Speaker 02

  we all, we all have sort of emotion regulation and using our phone is part of external emotion regulation when we use. Mechanisms outside our own brain to manage our emotions. And a lot of those people may well be texting a friend. I've actually talked in my book about a time when I was in a waiting room myself. And as a doctor, I see all these people in the waiting rooms using their phones, wondering what they might be doing. But I was about to undergo a procedure and I was waiting. And you know what, I texted a really good friend of mine because I was fearful. And it really helped, it really, really helped.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  So I think, again, it's just about seeing past the little device that people have in their hands and just wondering what are they doing and why they're doing it. I would have managed, even if I didn't have the ability to text my friend. But I actually made the whole experience so, so, so much better. To be able to distract myself and, you know, have a little messaging chat and some jokes. Really helped calm my brain and put me in a better position.

• 21:07Mike Carruthers?

  But there are times when, let's say you go out to dinner. You sit down at the restaurant and the person you're with whips out their phone and starts looking at it. Well, they wouldn't do that with a magazine. They wouldn't, you know, sit across the table from you and say, hang on a second, and pull out a magazine and hold it up and start reading it. But they, they'll do it with their phone. But there was a time before smartphones that you couldn't do that. And since you couldn't do that, I think people weren't as anxious about not having something to do because you didn't have it to do. It's like when you, when people can get a hold of you, you check to see if people are trying to get a hold of you.

• 21:51Mike Carruthers?

  But there was a time when if you were away on vacation, nobody could get a hold of you. So there was no anxiety because there was no, there was no possibility of people getting a hold of you. And therefore you didn't worry about it.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  That's a really good point. Um, so before we had mobile phones, uh, we would have either magazine or laptops and there was certainly, you know, taking them out in certain situations would constitute quite a big move or action. One of the things that makes phones so sticky and so habit forming is that they have, checking them has become a really small action. And our brain has an autopilot system where we encode habits, things that we do automatically. And those habits tend to be really, really small actions. Things like, you know, the way we talk, the way we use our hands, washing our hands, covering our mouth when we cough, these are all

• 22:51Speaker 02

  habits. And our phones have sort of been been integrated in this sort of habitual mechanism um, in the autopilot brain. And as a result, we have increased the number of situations that we check our phone. Now, brain is really an association machine. So for example, if you never, there'll be listeners here, if you never check your phone at the dinner table, then you don't have that habit and you feel no urge to check it. But there will be other people, and they are actually a minority, that will check their phone when they're out to dinner with somebody. And that has essentially become a habit. We have also somewhat normalized this

• 23:35Speaker 02

  uh, in society, that we expect people to be available all the time. And this online vigilance that you talk about, this thing of someone may have contacted me, someone, you know, there may be some things for me to do or to know about. This is called online vigilance, because you are always, you are in your physical world, but you're always monitoring your digital world. That can have an impact on your brain.

• 24:03Mike Carruthers?

  I, there was a study I remember hearing about, and I, I can't remember exactly, but the study, the results of the study were that just having your phone on the table sends a message to the other people in the room that you're not quite as present as you should be, or that you're not as engaged as you should be. Not that you're on the phone, just that it's sitting there waiting to ring, sends a message to the other people in the room.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  I'm not surprised by the results of that study. And there was a similar study like that that showed that some people find it more difficult to concentrate when their phone is next to their desk and it impacts their ability to do complex puzzles when they place their phone on their desk, even though it's face down and even though they don't receive any notifications. And that effect is ameliorated if they put their phone in a bag or out of sight in a different room. And the people it affects the most are those people that have this online vigilance that are constantly monitoring, you know, their phone and what might happen.

• 25:12Mike Carruthers?

  So clearly, and the reason I like this conversation is it's not just phone use in general that's a problem. It's what you're doing on the phone, how often you're on the phone, how often you check it, and what are you not doing when you're on the phone that's important. Fay Baghetti has been my guest. She's a practicing neurology doctor and neuroscientist, and she's author of the book, The Phone Fix. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Fay. It was great to have you come on here.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me, Mike. It's been a really insightful conversation.

• 25:47Speaker 05

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• 26:17Speaker 07

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• 26:50Mike Carruthers?

  You know what a paradox is, right? It's a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that, when investigated or explained, may actually prove to be true. For example, "Deep down, you're really shallow." That's a paradox. What's interesting about paradoxes, and why they're important to look at, is they force us to question our assumptions, and they force us to challenge conventions and dive deep into some critical thinking. Plus, paradoxes can be fun and eye-opening. Here to help get a better grasp on paradoxes is George Shapiro.

• 27:30Mike Carruthers?

  George is a journalist with a PhD in mathematical economics and author of several books. His latest is called "Perplexing Paradoxes: Unraveling Enigmas in the World Around Us." Hi, George, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Hi, Mike, thanks for having me.

• 27:47Mike Carruthers?

  So, take us a little deeper into the world of paradoxes, what they are, the importance of looking at them, because it's easy to see the absurdity in paradoxes and kind of laugh off the whole topic. So, help me see paradoxes through your eyes.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  A paradox is something that usually sounds absurd. And when you analyze it further, either you find out that it's not absurd, it just sounded absurd, but it's actually a true statement, or it's a statement that's based on incorrect assumptions, or the logical arguments are wrong, or something in the basic assumptions is incorrect. But, very importantly, paradoxes were the gateway for philosophers to think deeply about questions.

• 28:46Mike Carruthers?

  And so, an example, a real, simple example of a paradox that would explain that or illustrate that is what?

• 28:54Speaker 03

  For example, the liar's paradox. If I tell you I'm a liar, I always tell lies.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Then the question is, did I just say the truth? Because I am a liar, I always say lies. So when I tell you, I always tell lies, I actually said the truth. And that's a paradox.

• 29:19Mike Carruthers?

  And so how does that help us think deeply about things? Because it it almost sounds like a joke. I always tell lies. Well, if I'm lying, then I don't always tell lies. Well, so how does that help?

• 29:33Speaker 03

  It's important in order to understand our way of thinking, the theory of knowledge. For example, the liar's paradox. The problem with the liar's paradox is that I'm violating a law, basic logical law, namely the law of non-contradiction. A proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. Now, if I say I always lie, then I'm saying something that's both true and false at the same time. And that's the basic basis of this paradox.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  And it teaches us something about logical thinking, that we cannot pronounce assertions or statements that are both true and false. And if I say I'm a liar, then I just violated that law. I pronounced the statement that is both true and wrong and untrue.

• 30:38Mike Carruthers?

  So throw out just just randomly, just before we get into the different kinds of paradoxes, throw out a few more paradoxes to kind of get people thinking here.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  A very famous paradox is about Achilles and the turtle. It goes like this. If the turtle stands 10 feet in front of Achilles and they start running, Achilles can never reach and never overtake the turtle. Why? Because by the time he reaches where the turtle started out, the turtle will have moved. On a bit and when Achilles reaches that point, the turtle will have moved on a bit more. And so on and so on. And so the Greeks, the ancient Greeks said, well, in that case Achilles could never reach the turtle.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  But obviously Achilles can reach the turtle and he can overtake the turtle. So that was a conundrum. They didn't know how to solve it. And actually, the the solution to that paradox is that you cannot subdivide the steps of Achilles into smaller and smaller sub steps. The whole assertion that he'll always reach where the turtle was. And in that time space, the turtle will have gone a fraction further. And when Achilles

• 32:11Speaker 03

  overcomes that fraction, the turtle will have gone a bit further and so on. It's actually wrong because Achilles cannot take that small steps. And this paradox was only solved when Isaac Newton came up with infinitesimal mathematics with calculus. Where you speak about the infinitesimally small. So that's a a famous example of a paradox that led to very deep mathematics 2000 years later.

• 32:50Mike Carruthers?

  Doesn't seem like a paradox. It seems absurd. It seems ridiculous. Because obviously he he can catch the turtle and go blow past it. And like, who would even think that he couldn't? I mean, it just seems so.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Paradoxical.

• 33:08Mike Carruthers?

  Paradoxical, yeah, right, exactly.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Right, that's the definition of a paradox, I guess.

• 33:14Mike Carruthers?

  I guess so.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  It sounds just totally absurd.

• 33:17Mike Carruthers?

  So, talk about the different kinds of paradoxes.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  There are three kinds of paradoxes. There are paradoxes which are called veridical paradoxes. They are propositions that sound absurd, but when you dig into them, you find out that in fact they are true. They are simply unintuitive. For example, many of your listeners have probably heard about the Monty Hall problem. That was a television show many years ago.

• 33:53Mike Carruthers?

  Let's Make a Deal.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. So, there was Monty Hall and he asked somebody from the audience to come on stage and he said, "Here are three doors. Behind one of the doors, there's a car. And if you open the right door, you get the car." So, the person just points, let's say, to the left door. Then, Monty Hall said, "Okay, before we open it, I'll open one of the other two doors." And he opens one of the other two doors and it's empty behind. And then, Monty Hall tells the person, "Well, do you want to change your choice? You chose the left door.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  I opened the right door. Do you want to change to the middle door?" Most people would say, "Well, it doesn't matter. The chances are half-half. There are two closed doors. So, half it's the left door, half it's the middle door. So, I don't care." But that's actually wrong because at the outset, there was a one-third chance that the left door had the car and two-thirds chances that one of the other two doors had the car. So, when Monty Hall opened one of the other two doors,

• 35:16Speaker 03

  the two-thirds probability just went onto the door that was still closed. So, actually, the correct...

• 35:30Speaker 03

  See, a way to look at it is there's a one-third chance that the car is behind the left door that the person chose at the outset. And there's still a two-thirds chance that it's behind the closed door. So it's worthwhile changing to the other door. And that was a huge outcry at the time. Nobody believed it. But actually, it sounds paradoxical. There are two closed doors, so the chances should be fifty-fifty. But no, they are thirty-three and sixty-six. So it's worthwhile changing. So that's a veridical paradox. It sounds paradoxical

• 36:12Speaker 03

  because you'd think two closed doors, so it should be fifty-fifty. But no, when you dig into it, it's actually correct that it's thirty-three percent and sixty-six percent.

• 36:24Mike Carruthers?

  I've heard that before, explained a long time ago. And I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now. Because it doesn't seem that, because there are two doors in play. There's a car behind one of two doors. Therefore, there is a fifty-fifty chance, regardless of what happened before, right now.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  Well, yes, that's how most people think about it. But actually, it was one-third behind your door and two-thirds behind one of the other two doors. And that probability distribution remains the same even after Monty Hall opened the empty door. What he did was he shifted the one-third probability behind the empty door onto the other door. So that is now a two-thirds probability that it's behind the other door. But even after the explanation, many people don't get it. And it took me a while to understand it.

• 37:30Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, it may take me a while longer until I don't think I'll ever get it. Okay, so that's a falsidical, I mean a veridical paradox. That sounds absurd, but is in fact true. And I can only take your word for it because it still sounds absurd and not true. But so what about a falsidical paradox? What is that?

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Okay, a falsidical paradox is a proposition that sounds absurd and is indeed false or self contradictory. Like when I said, "I always lie." That's a falsidical paradox. Because it is both true and false. So there's fallacious reasoning there. I'm violating the law of non contradiction. That's a falsidical paradox. Another falsidical paradox would be the famous barber paradox. In a village, there are several men in the village.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  And some shave themselves. And all those who don't shave themselves are shaved by the barber. Let's call him Figaro. So Figaro shaves all men who do not shave themselves. The question is, does Figaro shave himself or does he not? If he does, then he shaves somebody who shaved himself. And Figaro shouldn't be shaving people, men who shave themselves. So if he doesn't shave himself, then he should. Because he's shaving all the men in the village who don't shave themselves. So that's a famous paradox.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  It was Bertrand Russell who discovered it or invented it. And it's a paradox. There are many paradoxes with self reference. When the barber actually refers to himself. Does he shave himself when he should only shave the people who don't shave themselves? So the solution to that paradox is, there is no barber like that. He cannot exist.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  And that is a falsidical paradox.

• 39:58Mike Carruthers?

  Let's talk about some other paradoxes, just to throw some more out there. What is the paradox of random numbers?

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Random numbers are a very important subject in computer science. So let me first say, one cannot speak about a random number. Random numbers are usually sequences of numbers. And random means that there's no rhyme or reason to them. So let me first ask you, which sequence sounds more random? Three, four, eight, nine, or one, one, one, one? So most people would say, okay, three, four, eight, nine is more random than one, one, one, one. Well, they're both equally likely.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  If you do a lot of numbers with a random number generator, you get approximately as many sequences three, four, eight, nine as you will get one, one, one, one. But so how do you know when you see a sequence whether it's random? Well, if you can recognize it as a random sequence, then it can't be random. Because randomness means you can't recognize it. There's no pattern, there's no rhyme or reason to the sequence.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  So you can never actually recognize or decide whether a sequence of numbers is random or not. The only thing you can do is investigate how the sequence was produced. If it was produced by a random process, let's say by throwing dice or flipping coins, then it's random. But Actually to see a sequence and see and say this is random that you cannot do.

• 42:01Mike Carruthers?

  So can a human being come up with a random sequence because we all have our biases and favorite numbers and things. So are our random number sequences really random or not?

• 42:12Speaker 03

  No, because you'd never come up, if I'd ask you to produce random numbers, you'd never come up with 1111111. You'd never say that. And actually, in a really true random number generator, this sequence 11111 should actually appear every once in a while. But the human being, we just wouldn't come up with such a number. Or 1234567. That sounds totally unrandom. But in a random number generator, this sequence should actually appear every once in a while.

• 42:53Mike Carruthers?

  Talk about, talk about the, what is it, antonymy paradox?

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Yes. Okay, so we talked about veridical and falsidical paradoxes. There's a third kind of paradox, which is called an antonymy. It's a statement that seems absurd, and the reasoning is correct, but there's something wrong with it, that it just cannot be. Usually it's when two equally valid principles contradict each other. Let's say you have the right to privacy, and you also have freedom of speech, and these two contradict each other. So you have an antonymy. It's not the paradox as such, but there are two things.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Two equally valid precepts which contradict each other. The right to privacy, freedom of speech. Or let's say, a medical doctor stands in front of a patient who is dying. Now, the Ten Commandments, one of the commandments says, "Thou shalt not lie." "You must not lie." The Hippocratic oath says, "Do no harm." Now, the doctor has a problem. Let's call it a paradox, an antinomy. He should tell the truth, but he knows if he tells the truth, he will hurt the patient. So, what does he do? I can't answer it.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  It's an antinomy. It's, uh, they're equally valid principles which contradict each other. So you can't, uh, you can't really answer that question.

• 44:42Mike Carruthers?

  Explain, I think it was Jevon's paradox, because I think it says a lot about human nature.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Uh, that's something from economics. Let's say, uh, you have an electricity bill every month, uh, let's say a hundred dollars. And the electric company now decides to lower the price by thirty percent. So you'd assume that at the end of the month, your electricity bill will only be seventy dollars. What happens usually is that the electricity bill is higher. It's hundred and twenty dollars, let's say. So that's a paradox. The price per kilowatt hour was reduced by thirty percent and your bill went up?

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Yes, because what happens when electricity prices go down? You leave the light on during the night. You don't turn off the air conditioner. You buy more electric appliances. So you use much, much more electricity and you end up paying more than you used to because the price went down.

• 45:56Mike Carruthers?

  You know what that reminds me of, and I think it's the same thing. You know when they widen a road because there's too many cars and there's congestion, so they add lanes, so they widen the road. And then when they open up the new lanes, more cars come than used to come because there's now more lanes and the traffic is as bad or worse than it was before. We've been talking about paradoxes, and my guest has been George Shapiro. He's a journalist with a PhD in mathematical economics, and the name of his book is "Perplexing Paradoxes: Unraveling Enigmas in the World Around Us." I appreciate you being here and sharing that, George. Thank you.

• 46:38Mike Carruthers?

  Do you know how to juggle? I actually taught myself to juggle over the course of a weekend several years ago, and I'm glad I did. If you've never tried juggling, it's worth learning. Research has found that learning to juggle has significant positive effects on your brain. Volunteers who took the juggling challenge experienced changes in the white matter of the brain. That matter is in the region that governs peripheral vision, concentration, and dexterity. The jugglers even had lower levels of stress after they mastered juggling. Learning any new activity can have similar benefits to juggling, but juggling taps into all the right elements, and it's something you can do anywhere without any special

• 47:23Mike Carruthers?

  equipment. You just need something to juggle, and you need at least three of them. And that is something you should know. And now that the episode is over, just take a moment of your time and leave us a rating and review on whatever platform you're listening on. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, TuneIn, wherever you listen, they usually have someplace where you can leave a rating and review. They really do help us, particularly when they are five stars. I'm Micah Rathers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 47:56Speaker 06

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