Monster House Presents.

This is the ad-supported version of Monster Talk. We're dependent upon the revenue from these ads

and from the support of our patrons at patreon.com forward slash Monster Talk to continue making

this show. As a disclaimer, your hosts are unable to control what ads you will hear,

and while we have done what we can to avoid ads that are divisive,

the system that ejects them sometimes ignores our preferences

and always seems to ignore our efforts to not interrupt the conversational flow.

While we understand this can be disruptive, we're trying our best.

Patreon remains the best way to enjoy commercial-free listening to our content,

plus you generally get extended coverage of the subject.

We're working on other ways to consume our content as well, so please stay tuned.

It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.

A giant hairy creature, part 8, part mad. In Larkness, a 24-mile long bottomless lake in the highlands of Scotland.

It's a creature known as the Loch Ness Monster. Monster Talk.

Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.

I'm Blake Smith.

And I'm Karen Stolznor.

For most people, it's easier to believe that there is an intangible, magical thing called a soul

bopping around inside our bodies than to believe that the complex and amazing experiences of being

human are all created in the lump of mushy organs we collectively refer to as the brain.

The concept of the soul, as some kind of explanation for human experience, is so widespread

that not believing in it makes you a weirdo at best and a dangerous blasphemer at worst.

...