Black Hole Holograms, How We Make Sense of the Nonsensical, and June’s Curiosity Challenge
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about how the meaning maintenance model explains the way our brains make sense of the nonsensical; and how the black hole information paradox may be explained by black holes acting like holograms. Plus: June’s Curiosity Challenge trivia segment!
How do we make sense of the nonsensical? Meet the "meaning maintenance model" by Kelsey Donk
- Robson, D. (May 2020). A touch of absurdity can help to wrap your mind around reality. Psyche Ideas. https://psyche.co/ideas/a-touch-of-absurdity-can-help-to-wrap-your-mind-around-reality
- Meaning Maintenance Model - IResearchNet. (2016, January 13). Psychology. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-cognition/meaning-maintenance-model/
- Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the Coherence of Social Motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88–110. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1
Black holes might work like holograms by Grant Currin
- Black holes? They are like a hologram. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/sisd-bht060320.php
- Ouellette, J. (2020, June 4). Nature’s cosmic hard drive? Black holes could store information like holograms. Ars Technica; Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/natures-cosmic-hard-drive-black-holes-could-store-information-like-holograms/
- Pando, L. A. (2020). A Microscopic Account of Black Hole Entropy. Physics, 13. https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/80
- Benini, F., & Milan, P. (2020). Black Holes in 4D N=4 Super-Yang-Mills Field Theory. Physical Review X, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.10.021037
- Referenced episode: https://curiositydaily.com/what-is-the-grand-unified-field-theory-w-dr-adam-becker-should-you-wad-or-fold-toilet-paper-and-why-you-judge-your-own-hoarding-differently/
Episodes referenced in Curiosity Daily trivia segment with Julian in Los Angeles
- Fighting Coronavirus with Llamas, Why Rain Stops Rocket Launches, and Listener Questions About Cold Things https://curiositydaily.com/fighting-coronavirus-with-llamas-why-rain-stops-rocket-launches-and-listener-questions-about-cold-things/
- Hope in the Fight Against Climate Change (w/ Katharine Hayhoe) and Overcoming Bedtime Procrastination https://curiositydaily.com/hope-in-the-fight-against-climate-change-w-katharine-hayhoe-and-overcoming-bedtime-procrastination/
- Why Rainy Days Make You Sleepy, A Fix for AI’s Energy Appetite, and Solving Geology’s Mystery of the “Great Unconformity” https://curiositydaily.com/why-rainy-days-make-you-sleepy-a-fix-for-ais-energy-appetite-and-solving-geologys-mystery-of-the-great-unconformity/
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/black-hole-holograms-how-we-make-sense-of-the-nonsensical-and-junes-curiosity-challenge
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:06.8 | I'm Cody Gough. And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.8 | Today you learn about how our brains make sense of the nonsensical and why black holes might work like holograms. |
| 0:15.0 | Then we'll test your podcast knowledge in this month's Curiosity Challenge trivia segment. |
| 0:20.0 | Let's satisfy and challenge some curiosity. |
| 0:24.0 | I'm really excited about this story. The way our brains help us make sense of the nonsensical |
| 0:30.0 | is really interesting. I'm talking about when we're thrust into an uncertain situation |
| 0:35.9 | or the world just seems to go sideways. Like when you saw what Elon Musk named his kid back in May, |
| 0:42.3 | like what is that? |
| 0:43.4 | X, A.E, etc. |
| 0:45.2 | I don't even know. |
| 0:46.5 | Well, believe it or not, scientists know how we make sense of stuff like this. |
| 0:51.2 | And the way our brains adapt can help us see the actual world around |
| 0:54.8 | us in a new way. Now psychologists have a theory for how the brain makes sense of the world. |
| 1:01.1 | It's called the meaning maintenance model. It says that people |
| 1:04.7 | understand reality by making a web of beliefs that connect the people and the |
| 1:09.8 | places and the objects around them. |
| 1:12.8 | So when something unexpected happens, that disrupts our web of reality, like when a magician pulls |
| 1:19.4 | a rabbit out of an empty hat. |
| 1:21.4 | We feel uncertain and we need to reconstruct our web to accommodate this new sometimes |
| 1:26.9 | disturbing information. And we can do three different things to rebuild that web of beliefs. Number one we can build a whole |
| 1:36.1 | new mental representation of reality. Something like that hat must lead to another |
... |
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