I'm Alan Alder and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

For me doing tricks in a magic show is a playful epistemological experience.

You are playing around in a safe zone with how we determine what's true.

But we've seen what happens when truth is played with on a real stage in the real world

with politics and so on.

And it's horrific to put it in very blunt terms if you come to see a Patentella show and

you say if these two guys can make me think something that's that's patently not true,

what can people with a real budget and with a lack of morals do.

That's Penn Gillette, half of the pen and teller magic team.

Penn is the half that talks.

He tells me teller has a lot to say behind the scenes and it never occurred to me until

our conversation that magic tricks could shine a light on these truth challenge times

we live in.

But Penn has some interesting ideas on how we process reality.

Plus he tells me how magic brought him together with the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard

Feynman.

This is so great that you could be on the show with me today.

I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Well, me too.

Me too.

It's wonderful to see you.

Well, you know, the first thing I wanted to ask you about is a twist on the old joke.

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