1min Snip (Time 0:01:56)
1min Snip (Time 0:02:11)
1min Snip (Time 0:06:41)
1min Snip (Time 0:07:52)
The Evolution of Loneliness Transcript: Speaker 1 Quite close-knit community, which provides you with a lot of support in all sorts of psychological and social respects that are very important to the way we, the way we deal with life In general, our success as a species owes its origins to the extent to which we’ve been able to form those kind of self-help communities. Speaker 2 Some level of human superpowers cooperation at various scales. Speaker 1 Indeed so, indeed so. Let’s change topics a little bit. Speaker 2 You quote some work from John. I’m going to get his name right. Katiapo about claims that neuro modulators are an important aspect of these kinds of things and may suggest an evolutionary dimension that loneliness has got some attributes with Our genes, essentially. You talk about some specific neuromodulators, and you even have some specific views contrary to popular culture on our good friend, Oxytocin. Tell us a little bit about your thinking with respect to neuromodulators, friendship, loneliness and all that. Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I mean, I think the key point about what John Katiapo was saying was simply that feelings of loneliness are kind of an evolutionary alarm bell, really. Something’s not going well in your social life. Get out (Time 0:19:11)
The Role of Neuromodulators in the Brain Transcript: Speaker 1 In how the brain is organized and the size of different bits of the brain between people who are naturally social isolates, who are commonly lonely as a result, and people who are very Intensely social. So there is something that goes, and this appears to be related to some aspects of our genetics as well. So it’s not entirely a consequence of the environment and experiences you have. There is a genetic component to that. And part of that may relate to this connection hasn’t been kind of worked out exactly, but it may well relate to the role of some of the key neuromodulators in this whole business of the Brain. So there is a lot of awareness of friendship versus loneliness. Now, there has been a kind of media frenzy, and to some extent, a research frenzy over this little neuropeptide oxytocin. Oxytocin is very interesting because it actually is very ancient. It evolved in fish to maintain water balance within the body. It sort of gets completely swamped with all the water coming in, seeping in from outside, and then it got sort of switched into the reverse pattern with the evolution of mammals because Our problem, once (Time 0:22:12)
The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Transcript: Speaker 1 A lot of awareness of friendship versus loneliness. Now, there has been a kind of media frenzy, and to some extent, a research frenzy over this little neuropeptide oxytocin. Oxytocin is very interesting because it actually is very ancient. It evolved in fish to maintain water balance within the body. It sort of gets completely swamped with all the water coming in, seeping in from outside, and then it got sort of switched into the reverse pattern with the evolution of mammals because Our problem, once the fish, if you like, colonized the land, they had the reverse problem of trying to keep the water in rather than being sort of seeped out with the drying environment On land. And so we all have it, and it serves these very important functions of helping to modulate the body’s fluid balance, if you like, but it was co-opted by mammals in particular for use in Other infant interactions, because obviously lactation involves a huge amount of pressure on the water content of the body, as it were. You have to, you know, milk is 95% water, basically. (Time 0:22:55)
The Role of Beta Endorphins in Social Bonds and Pain Relief • Experiments on the effects of neuropeptides, specifically beta endorphins, have yielded interesting results in various relationships. • The beta endorphins play a crucial role in mother-infant relationships and romantic relationships. • Neuropeptides, such as beta endorphins, are important in shaping the social world, especially in primates. • Beta endorphins are powerful neurotransmitters that help build friendships. • Beta endorphins, known for their pain-relieving properties, are 30 times more potent than morphine as analgesics. Transcript: Speaker 1 Not always terribly well thought out experiments, I’m afraid in some cases, but it’s true that it does have work in the way I suggest it. It’s very important in mother-infant relationships, and it works in terms of romantic relationships, which you might argue are kind of indirectly related to each other for the obvious Reasons that you can’t have babies without having romantic relationships first. But in terms of what kind of makes the social world go round, at least in primates, it appears to be another, and in fact, much more powerful, neuropeptide in the brain, the endorphin System, particularly the beta endorphins. And these appear to kind of underpin the building of friendships, essentially. Now, endorphins, like many other chemicals, they’re neurotransmitters in the brain, they seem to be involved in many different functions, but the beta endorphins in particular Seems to be involved with the pain system. So they are extremely good analgesics. In fact, wait for wait, beta endorphins are 30 times more powerful as analgesics than morphine is. (Time 0:25:04)
The Power of Endorphins in Building Social Relationships Transcript: Speaker 1 But in terms of what kind of makes the social world go round, at least in primates, it appears to be another, and in fact, much more powerful, neuropeptide in the brain, the endorphin System, particularly the beta endorphins. And these appear to kind of underpin the building of friendships, essentially. Now, endorphins, like many other chemicals, they’re neurotransmitters in the brain, they seem to be involved in many different functions, but the beta endorphins in particular Seems to be involved with the pain system. So they are extremely good analgesics. In fact, wait for wait, beta endorphins are 30 times more powerful as analgesics than morphine is. So the short answer here is, or the short lesson is, don’t take all this artificial stuff, just get your own morphine, your own endorphins go far, far better. And they make you feel good, you know. Speaker 2 How do we do that? Speaker 1 Well, in terms of our sort of primate ancestry, the endorphin system is triggered by physical contact, so stroking, and patting, and cuddling, and so on. This is just primate grooming. (Time 0:25:33)
The Endorphin System and Primate Grooming • The endorphin system is triggered by physical contact like stroking and cuddling. • Monkeys trigger the endorphin system through a unique neural system. • Humans can also trigger the endorphin system through stroking and cuddling. • The endorphin system is embedded in close relationships. • The endorphin system doesn’t work for large numbers of people simultaneously. Transcript: Speaker 2 How do we do that? Speaker 1 Well, in terms of our sort of primate ancestry, the endorphin system is triggered by physical contact, so stroking, and patting, and cuddling, and so on. This is just primate grooming. So when you see monkeys in the zoo, leaping through each other’s fur and picking bits out, what they’re actually doing is triggering the endorphin system in the brain through a fairly Complicated but unique neural system, the only response to light, slow stroking. And we have that neural system, we can trigger it with stroking and cuddling and so on in the way we do. And of course, that’s why that system is still embedded in very close relationships, but it kind of doesn’t work for large numbers of people at the same time because you can only cuddle One person at a time. (Time 0:26:34)
The Power of Physical Touch and Bonding Activities • Physical touch involves real focused attention and creates meaning in relationships. • Triggering the same neural system can release endorphins and create a sense of calmness, relaxation, trust, and happiness. • Laughter and singing are activities that have been co-opted by our ancestors as core parts of our social toolkit. Transcript: Speaker 2 I don’t know if I do. I don’t know if my wife would think about me trying that experiment, but we’ll see if the opportunity ever arises. Speaker 1 And that’s because you’re not paying attention to them. And there’s something very intimate about physical touch that involves real focused attention and if you like meaning in the relationship. And of course, that’s not what you want for bonding bigger groups. So what we’ve found historically is a number of ways of triggering the same neural system, at least at the brain end and triggering the release of endorphins in the brain, to create this Sense of calmness and relaxation and trustingness and happiness that the endorphins give us and make us feel bonded to the people we’re doing these activities with. And these activities have probably in the following order being co-opted by our ancestors. They were in an now former core part of our social toolkit and they are laughter, singing, singing without words, probably (Time 0:27:44)
Ways to Trigger the Endorphin System for Bonding • Physical touch can create a sense of intimacy and meaning in relationships. • Activities like laughter, singing, dancing, feasting, and storytelling can trigger the release of endorphins in the brain and create a sense of calmness, relaxation, trust, and happiness. • These activities have been co-opted by our ancestors and are part of our social toolkit. • They allow us to bond with multiple individuals simultaneously without the need for physical touch. Transcript: Speaker 1 And there’s something very intimate about physical touch that involves real focused attention and if you like meaning in the relationship. And of course, that’s not what you want for bonding bigger groups. So what we’ve found historically is a number of ways of triggering the same neural system, at least at the brain end and triggering the release of endorphins in the brain, to create this Sense of calmness and relaxation and trustingness and happiness that the endorphins give us and make us feel bonded to the people we’re doing these activities with. And these activities have probably in the following order being co-opted by our ancestors. They were in an now former core part of our social toolkit and they are laughter, singing, singing without words, probably originally, dancing, playing of music, obviously, feasting, Eating and drinking alcohol together, telling emotional sob stories and many of the rituals of religion. All of these we’ve been able to trigger the endorphins system and they make you feel much more bonded to the people you do them with. And they have the advantage because you don’t physically have to touch the other person. It gets over that intimacy hump as it were, which means you can bond with many individuals simultaneously. (Time 0:27:54)
cita endorfinas vinculación
The power of synchronized activities in building community and bonding Transcript: Speaker 1 All of these we’ve been able to trigger the endorphins system and they make you feel much more bonded to the people you do them with. And they have the advantage because you don’t physically have to touch the other person. It gets over that intimacy hump as it were, which means you can bond with many individuals simultaneously. And of course, if you’re doing things like singing or I keep suggesting somebody tries to see how many people you can get in a line dance together, but the synchrony of the behaviour that You get in those sort of contexts means that you can kind of create this sense of community with very, very large numbers of individuals. We’ve done it with up to 200 people in a choir, it works extremely well. Choirs of 200 get more bonded by singing together than choirs of 22, for example. So there are sort of booster effects that come out of it. But what seems to be important in there is the synchrony of these behaviours and we think about a lot of these activities that I’ve mentioned, most of them are highly synchronized. So when we laugh, we laugh in synchrony with each other. When we dance, obviously we dance in synchrony. When we sing, of course we sing in synchrony. (Time 0:29:01)
La estructura de nuestros ritos sociales facilita el encuentro en el vínculo. Transcript: Speaker 1 If we want to engage with people, what we do is we try and engineer it so that we can do one or other of these activities or several of them at the same time. Even alcohol. Speaker 2 Think about clinking the mugs and bottoms up together. Yes, absolutely so. Speaker 1 If you think about if you sort of grab a sandwich on the street and eat it on your own, that’s one thing. Satisfies your hunger maybe. But if we sit down to a social meal, a social dinner with friends or with people we want to get to know, everything is very ritualized so that we do things at the same time. The courses come at the same time as it were and provide sort of moments of synchrony through the meal. We will engage in the odd toast maybe. So again, somebody is the master of ceremonies. There is regulating the drinking that you do. So you all do it at the same time. Somebody perhaps tells stories or tells jokes and makes us laugh and we all laugh together. We all sob together. These are the secrets of a good social interaction and a good social life. Perhaps it’s not surprising that they’re the ones we use and we don’t sit in silence with each other. (Time 0:31:19)
The Conservation of Time in Relationships • Conservation laws are important to understand in any field of science. • The concept of time is a recurring theme in the book and relationships. • Time plays a crucial role in maintaining the quality of relationships. • Douglas Adams’ perspective on time in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is contrasted with Einstein’s understanding. • Bonding mechanisms in relationships are highly dependent on time. Transcript: Speaker 2 Let’s move on to another topic. When I try to get my head around a body of science, one of the things I like to look for is conservation laws and one that seemed to keep popping up throughout the book. Of course, not as rigorous as say the physical conservation of energy or something like that is time. And that time seems to have a conservation law like element in the domain of friends and friend-like relationships. You must have brought it up 20 different times in the book. It was a theme that was subtly woven throughout. Speaker 1 Time is the secret of the universe. Contrary to Douglas of Adam’s, 49 or whatever it was in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it’s actually time Einstein was right all along. And that’s simply the consequence of the fact that these bonding mechanisms we use are very time dependent. And we have to keep repeating them in order to maintain the quality of any relationship we do. (Time 0:35:15)
Definición de la hipótesis del cerebro social Transcript: Speaker 1 The social brain hypothesis actually originally came or was proposed as an explanation for why monkeys and apes have much bigger brains than any of the other species of animals that Share the planet with us. And in terms of brain size for body weight, you know, sort of much bigger brains than even whales and elephants and all those large-bodied animals with big brains have. But it turns out that in monkeys and apes, but not for any other group of or major group of birds or mammals, there’s a very nice relationship between the size of a species brain and the Size of its social group. So species that live in big social groups have big brains or in particular, it’s the kind of neocortex primarily, which is the wrinkly surface bit of our brain. It’s only a few millimeters deep in fact. It’s a huge sheet wrapped around this small inner core of sort of old mammalian brain. The inner core does all the stuff that keeps body and soul together for you. The neocortex on the surface is where all the clever stuff gets down. The large chunk of that is devoted to managing your relationships. So it’s partly memory, but it’s also actually all the computation you have to do to figure out why Jemima behaved in this particular way, what were her intentions and what are the consequences Of that. How should you respond and what are the implications for the way she’s behaved for the other members of her social network and the other members of your social network. So what makes the social world of monkeys and apes complicated is that they are in a much more complex social environment where they’re calculating the knock-on consequences for other Members of the group of what you do with another person. So it’s the third party consequences that have to be figured out in order to keep the group bonded and together rather than dispersing. So that was sort of shown with comparative data. (Time 0:46:12)
The Role of the Neocortex in Managing Relationships • The neocortex is responsible for managing relationships and social interactions. • Understanding others’ intentions and behaviors is a part of the neocortex’s computation. • Calculating the consequences of one’s actions is crucial for maintaining social bonds. • Monkeys and apes navigate a complex social environment with third party consequences. Transcript: Speaker 1 It’s only a few millimeters deep in fact. It’s a huge sheet wrapped around this small inner core of sort of old mammalian brain. The inner core does all the stuff that keeps body and soul together for you. The neocortex on the surface is where all the clever stuff gets down. The large chunk of that is devoted to managing your relationships. So it’s partly memory, but it’s also actually all the computation you have to do to figure out why Jemima behaved in this particular way, what were her intentions and what are the consequences Of that. How should you respond and what are the implications for the way she’s behaved for the other members of her social network and the other members of your social network. So what makes the social world of monkeys and apes complicated is that they are in a much more complex social environment where they’re calculating the knock-on consequences for other Members of the group of what you do with another person. So it’s the third party consequences that have to be figured out in order to keep the group bonded and together rather than dispersing. (Time 0:47:06)
Clarifying the Concepts of Mentalizing Circuits, Theory of Mind, and Mind Reading • The mentalizing circuits and networks are often referred to as theory of mind or mind reading. • Theory of mind is the ability to understand what’s going on in somebody else’s mind. • Theory of mind is shared by humans and some great apes, but not by other animals or birds. • The capacity for theory of mind develops in children around the age of five and becomes as competent as adults. Transcript: Speaker 2 So I just wanted to clarify for the audience that we talk about the mentalizing circuits and networks. Another term that is often used for that kind of cognition is theory of mind. Are they pretty much similar concepts? Speaker 1 And a third term that’s often appears in this context is mind reading, which perhaps is easier to comprehend more straightforwardly. In other words, your capacity to read somebody else’s mind. So theory of mind is the term invented by philosophers who kill you, like to confuse everybody by using inscrutable terminology. But the logic of it kind of makes sense. In other words, it was that you had a theory of somebody else’s mind, what they had in mind, what they called it theory of mind. So it’s the ability to understand what’s going on in somebody else’s mind. Actually, that’s, although that’s a kind of major Rubicon really, which only we and maybe the great apes, the orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas share none of the other animals And birds seem to be able to do this kind of stuff. This theory of mind of reading one of the person’s mind is actually by our standards, very small beer indeed. And it’s capacity that children develop at the age of five and become pretty competent at it as competent as adults. (Time 0:51:07)
Theory of mind: Understanding someone else’s thoughts • Theory of mind is the ability to understand what’s going on in somebody else’s mind. • Children develop the capacity for theory of mind at the age of five and become competent like adults by the age of six. • Humans can handle up to five people’s mind states simultaneously. • Conversations never get beyond four people because of the cognitive demands of understanding multiple mind states. Transcript: Speaker 1 And a third term that’s often appears in this context is mind reading, which perhaps is easier to comprehend more straightforwardly. In other words, your capacity to read somebody else’s mind. So theory of mind is the term invented by philosophers who kill you, like to confuse everybody by using inscrutable terminology. But the logic of it kind of makes sense. In other words, it was that you had a theory of somebody else’s mind, what they had in mind, what they called it theory of mind. So it’s the ability to understand what’s going on in somebody else’s mind. Actually, that’s, although that’s a kind of major Rubicon really, which only we and maybe the great apes, the orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas share none of the other animals And birds seem to be able to do this kind of stuff. This theory of mind of reading one of the person’s mind is actually by our standards, very small beer indeed. And it’s capacity that children develop at the age of five and become pretty competent at it as competent as adults. By the time they’re certainly by the time they’re six, but humans, as they develop from that age into adults, the capacity becomes larger and larger scale. So we can factor more and more minds in at the same time. And what normal adult humans seem to be able to do is to handle five people’s mind states at the same time. Now, of course, one of those is yours, right? So because you have to be imagining that somebody else is imagining something, but it means that you can handle four other people’s mind states simultaneously. That’s a hugely costly thing to do in terms of neural processing, computing capacity of the brain. But it also perhaps explains why conversations never get beyond four. (Time 0:51:21)
Adultos pueden mentalizar máximo a 5 personas simultáneamente. Es muy costoso. Transcript: Speaker 1 And it’s capacity that children develop at the age of five and become pretty competent at it as competent as adults. By the time they’re certainly by the time they’re six, but humans, as they develop from that age into adults, the capacity becomes larger and larger scale. So we can factor more and more minds in at the same time. And what normal adult humans seem to be able to do is to handle five people’s mind states at the same time. Now, of course, one of those is yours, right? So because you have to be imagining that somebody else is imagining something, but it means that you can handle four other people’s mind states simultaneously. That’s a hugely costly thing to do in terms of neural processing, computing capacity of the brain. But it also perhaps explains why conversations never get beyond four. So four seems to be the absolute upper limit of conversation sizes, the number of people you can have in a conversation at any one time. If you get a fifth person, the conversation, it will break up very, very quickly into two conversations. We seem unable to do more that. And I kind of, it’s a slight joke really, if you like, rather than a necessarily something we do for some. But I kind of have this vision that the reason it’s set at four is that when we’re having an interesting conversation, it’s always about somebody else who’s not there. And that’s the fifth moment that we’re specting. This goes out very nicely. If you look at a good dramatist, or perhaps a good novelist, actually, but so we’ve done it with dramatists, we’ve done it in films, contemporary films, and we’ve done it in Shakespeare’s Plays. They never have more than four people having a speaking part at any one time. So if you look at Shakespeare’s (Time 0:52:24)
2min adultos conversación mentalización recursos teoría_de_la_mente
adultos conversación mentalización teoría_de_la_mente recursos 2min
The Limit of Conversation Sizes and the Fifth Missing Element • Conversations have an upper limit of four participants. • With a fifth person, conversations quickly break up into multiple smaller conversations. • Interesting conversations often revolve around someone who is not present. • Dramatists, including Shakespeare, rarely have more than four people speaking at once in plays. Transcript: Speaker 1 That’s a hugely costly thing to do in terms of neural processing, computing capacity of the brain. But it also perhaps explains why conversations never get beyond four. So four seems to be the absolute upper limit of conversation sizes, the number of people you can have in a conversation at any one time. If you get a fifth person, the conversation, it will break up very, very quickly into two conversations. We seem unable to do more that. And I kind of, it’s a slight joke really, if you like, rather than a necessarily something we do for some. But I kind of have this vision that the reason it’s set at four is that when we’re having an interesting conversation, it’s always about somebody else who’s not there. And that’s the fifth moment that we’re specting. This goes out very nicely. If you look at a good dramatist, or perhaps a good novelist, actually, but so we’ve done it with dramatists, we’ve done it in films, contemporary films, and we’ve done it in Shakespeare’s Plays. They never have more than four people having a speaking part at any one time. So if you look at Shakespeare’s plays, it’s always and only have a maximum of four people because what’s clearly sitting at the back of Shakespeare’s mind is that they’re not there. (Time 0:53:09)
The Discovery of the Dunbar Number and its Relation to Primate Behavior • The speaker discusses the constraints on evolution related to the birth canal, pelvis, and brain. • The Dunbar number and its history is mentioned. • The speaker stumbled upon the social brain hypothesis while trying to solve a problem with primate behavior. • The speaker found a correlation between species group sizes and brain sizes. Transcript: Speaker 2 Yes, I sort of birth canal, the pelvis and the brain. So clearly one of the serious constraints and evolution. Well, it’s about that time. Let’s move on to that topic. If I’m going to talk to Robin Dunbar, I certainly got to talk about the Dunbar number. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about the history of how you came to derive it. Speaker 1 Well, this was all as is often the case in science, actually, a complete accident, a bit of serendipity here. I was trying to solve a very trivial problem to do with primate behavior, to do with grooming, actually. And it occurred to me that the social brain hypothesis, although it was in a slightly different form, which had just been proposed at the time by somebody else, this relationship between The fact that primates have bigger brains than other species is because they live in much more complex societies and they just need a bigger computer to handle all the information. It occurred to me if that’s true, then it should be the case that species group sizes correlate with their brain sizes. Got the data out of the journals and put them on a graph and sure enough they did. (Time 0:56:49)
Predicting the Group Size of Humans Based on Brain Size • The regression equation predicts that humans would have a group size of about 150 based on the size of their brain. • The speaker acknowledges that this estimate may be too small given the size of modern human societies. • The speaker suggests looking at the group sizes of traditional hunter-gatherer societies to gain insight into human communities. • Identifying the equivalent community type in humans to compare with monkeys and apes is challenging due to the complex social structure of humans. • Humans live in a hierarchical social system with small groups nested within larger groups. Transcript: Speaker 1 You know, well, where do humans fit into this? So since we know how big the human brain is, let’s plug them into the regression equation for this graph and see where humans would lie. And what that predicted was a group size of about 150. And I have to say, I thought this was rather too small, probably by several orders of magnitude given that we live in huge conurbations these days. But I thought, well, you know, we’ve lived most of our evolutionary history in very, very small scale hunter-gatherer type of societies. Let’s see what size of communities these traditional scale traditional societies live in. And one of the problems with that was not knowing really what the correct community type to choose in humans. That would be equivalent to groups in monkeys and apes because the problem with humans, but it turns out it’s also true of monkeys and apes. But humans very obviously live in sort of this highly layered form of social system where you have small groups embedded within bigger groups with embedded within yet bigger groups. (Time 0:58:12)