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hey everybody welcome to another episode
of impact books today is going to be a
little different than normal and I'm
going to be reviewing a book called sum
by Dr David Eagleman and David Eagleman
is a neuroscientist he's one of my
absolute favorite neuroscientists and we
recently um interviewed him I guess
that's the Royal Wii uh I recently
interviewed him on impact Theory and had
an absolute blast with this guy the way
that he views the world is utterly
utterly fascinating now the reason that
this is going to be a slightly different
um book review than normal is because
this is actually a work of literary
fiction so here you have a very
accomplished neuroscientist who's done a
TED Talk that just smashed it about how
um as human beings we're actually going
to be able to expand what he refers to
as the umelt um the the human umelt so
literally an umelt is all the things
that we take in from a sensory
perspective and so we can't see an
infrared so even though it's present um
radio waves even though they're present
they all exist outside of our umelt we
can't see them we can't touch them um
and to think that a guy that's operating
at that level of science is also really
intrigued and driven by things at a more
human and emotional um non-scientific
level I found it really really
interesting and this book is um the
subtitle of it is 40 Tales from the
after lives and it's literally 40 small
vignettes um all having to do with with
different potentialities if you will for
the afterlife and what they really
reflect back to us about The Human
Condition um and really gave me some
just incredible insights and I didn't
even know this book existed until I was
researching um Eagleman for the
interview and he made or somebody made a
passing reference to it and something
that I was um digging into to learn
about him and I thought oh well you know
let me check it out out and then um
reading the first chapter turned into me
reading the whole book and it just ended
up really being uh an incredibly
fascinating look um back at ourselves
and it reminds me of a book called
Einstein's dreams which is similar I
don't remember how many small vignettes
but it was a series of these small
vignettes about um about time and about
being human and how time impacts um our
perception of ourselves and our lives
and so I'm just going to run through the
ones that really jumped out at me and
what they made me think about in in the
hopes that um you guys will be as
intrigued and interested by these
glimpses of humanity as I was and
hopefully we'll go and read the book uh
this this one comes from the very first
story in the book and it is basically um
when you die your life is played back to
you in real time but it's played back to
you in a different sequence so all
things that are thematically similar are
going to be grouped together so the
amount of time that you spend waiting in
line the amount of amount of time that
you spent lying the amount of time that
you spent um in a warm embrace like they
they all play back in real time and and
what I found so interesting about this
is in the book he basically says you
know you spend this many hours waiting
in line you spend this many hours
sleeping and you know sleeping was like
years years and years of just sleeping
um this many minutes in rapturous joy
and to see the different time scales
like the amount of time that you spend
in rapturous joy is dwarfed by the
amount of time that you spend waiting in
lines like the DMV and hearing that and
because
his the numbers that he assigned seemed
so real that the amount of time that you
have spent waiting in line is so much
bigger than the amount of time that
you've spent in rapturous Joy there
really was this sense of opportunity
lost and that's exactly how I felt
reading the story that there are
opportunities in my life that so often
often I'm just letting things happen
that I'm not making an effort to
minimize the amount of time that I spend
doing the innan things that I'm not
trying to optimize my life for joy that
I I really did have this just incredible
sense of of missing opportunities and
that I think is the real power of this
book is it makes you
question what you prioritize it makes
you question some of these really base
fundamental things in your life and just
by getting that small shift in
perspective of um contemplating a life
that is laid out in thematics it really
makes you think what are the things that
are important in my life and I have an
unending fear that I don't spend enough
time thinking about my life from a high
enough level that my life is just
passing me by and wow I'm thinking about
this in real time I think that's why I'm
obsessed with living forever that some
part of me knows that my life isn't
optimized right now that I haven't
focused on all the right things and
because I'm not focusing on the right
things that if I run out of time that
there will be um a sense of regret that
is born only out of that that I could
have done things in a way that was
more valuable to my own belief system
and like that's the kind of thing this
is just one of the 40 stories and that's
the kind of thing that this book really
projects you inward to think about your
own life and to think about the the
things that are invisible to us and
there's that great um David Foster
Wallace agent
Smith David Foster Wallace and that
notion that um the fish are the last
ones to see the water and there's
another story I I'll get more into this
later but how much of our life is the
way that it is because we can't see the
water the things that we take for
granted that are so pervasive and and
that could be changed but they're so
pervasive that we don't even see that
they're there and and to me mindset is
certainly one of those but how you spend
your time is another all right another
story um this is about how in the
afterlife you only see the people that
you know and so the people that you
encountered on a regular basis they're
there in your life and it's not
necessarily just your family and friends
but it's the people people that are in
your
ecosystem and what would the world look
like if it were reduced to that there
are no strangers um it's only people
that you you know have this sense of
warm familiarity for and in the
beginning you really like it and in the
beginning this feels truly like heaven
and then over time you begin to realize
that your world has collapsed down to
only the known and there's no
opportunity for surprise there's no
opportunity for Serendipity it's really
just boiled down to um those things that
you went out of your way to encounter in
your life and this was one of those ones
um that had this like really poignant
punchline at the end and it says you
know as you begin to realize that you
miss all of the industries like think of
the industries that you knew nothing
about that you never encountered maybe
the textile industry or or the way that
food is manufactured but because you
didn't know anybody in those Realms you
didn't take the time to learn anything
about them or encounter them that
you don't know that you miss it until
it's gone and once those things are gone
and you begin to see that your world
kind of like Truman in The Truman Show
that your world now is so small and that
all those possibilities the things that
you could have done like merely knowing
in the back of your mind somewhere that
you could take that trip to Europe or
you could go to South America or you
could learn about something that you
know nothing about knowing that you
could is in and of itself
amazing but in life that unexpressed
potential is
pleasurable but once your world is
reduced down to only the things that you
actually acted on only those
potentialities that you did something
about once your world is reduced to that
it becomes too small it becomes
claustrophobic it becomes sad and
there's this sense of aching and longing
for something more and it was one of the
stories where originally you think it's
heaven but then ultimately it becomes
hell and the poignant part that I was
talking about that the punchline that
the book ends on
is that the narrator has no sympathy for
you because that is the life that you
chose while you were alive and that gave
me the chills it gave me the chills now
just to talk about
it that we're all living that life
really of somewhat limited possibilities
and were pacified by the fact that we
could do more and in fact that's one of
the things the the thing that became
most memorable for me out of Einstein's
dreams was this one world in which
people lived forever and because they
lived forever the world broke into two
different pieces people that did
everything because there was always time
to do all the things they were
passionate about and so they could just
do one thing after another after another
and they were never hindered by the
overwhelming nature of all the things
that they wanted to do and explore but
then there was the flip side people did
nothing because there was always time to
do something tomorrow and that like
really haunted me in fact just got the
chills again that's one of those things
that I read that book probably when I
was like 13 or 14 and it has left a
lasting impression on me because it
became a part of my identity to always
be one of the people that would do
everything that would accept that
there's enough time for me to pursue all
of my passions and not to be lulled into
this sense that I could do it tomorrow
and so I had that similar sense here of
you know encountering more new ideas
encountering new people um with New
Perspectives and that to to do it now to
not put it off to not be waiting till
tomorrow was really powerful and that's
that's one of the ideas from this book
that will really haunt me um one of the
other stories so a lot of the stories
have to do
with Heaven and Hell and what's a reward
and what's a punishment and one of them
is this notion that
immortality is a punishment that God
bestows on the wicked now obviously you
guys know me I want to live forever
that's a big thing for me um and so it
was really fascinating to see the flip
side of that coin and a quote from the
story um is
that too much life is the opiate of the
masses and that when you live forever it
there's like this numbing effect that
there's no
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um there's no need to push there's no
need to do something now there's no need
to do something quickly because you're
going to live forever that everything
diminishes in its brightness in its
enthusiasm that in in not being
transient in not being these fleeting
disappearing moments that nothing is
special and that it is the the
transience of the moment it's knowing
that these things that are beautiful are
going to be lost that these things that
you love are going to be lost that the
people that you love will ultimately be
lost that really makes them
valuable and that
is intriguing to me because I don't feel
that way and I guess because even if
like the only experience that I know is
eternity I don't have a sense of not
being here I can't comprehend not being
here again in the future so every moment
that I've lived is eternal in its nature
and despite that the the comings and
goings of things in life and as Phil
Jackson said things come together Things
Fall Apart because I know that even if
the cycle repeats
forever that there's a transience to
this moment there's a transience to
feeling good there's a transience to
feeling bad and that in the fact that
things will always pass that they will
always EB and flow into something else
like that creates in my life a sense
that everything is transient even if
life itself is eternal so but it was
really interesting to hear such an
eloquent
description of what that would be like
for somebody for whom that would be a
living hell and I found that very very
interesting and one of the ideas um in
that story is that time is essentially
drowning God and he envies humans
their their temporality the the fact
that they will go away and that it gives
everything such importance so um two
differing uh opinions on that one
there's another one dying is a two-stage
process where finally the ego melts away
and you're able to see yourself exactly
as you are that's the first
part to the process of dying and the
second part and this is interesting is
what finally kills you is having a naked
look at who you really are without the
protective mechanisms of the ego now
remember this is being written by a
neuroscientist somebody who understands
that the conscious mind is really taking
credit for all the stuff that happens
subconsciously that um knowing the
extent to which we lie to ourselves the
extent to which our vision of ourselves
is a construct and it has almost nothing
to do with how other people people see
us and that to truly be
robbed of that protective mechanism to
really see ourselves as others see us
would be so traumatic that it would kill
us and and I've thought a lot about what
where is the ego protective mechanism
where is um the psychological immune
systems ability to swath Us in positive
self illusion where is that helping us
and at what point does it begin to hurt
us and that's something that I think a
lot about and when you hear me talk
about you know um knowing when to stare
nakedly at my inadequacies and knowing
when to really have belief in myself you
know that constant Push Pull between
those two things is I think sitting at
the heart of people's ability to grow
and get better it's like you have to
protect yourself enough emotionally to
get out of bed to do things to believe
in yourself to believe that you can do
something that you're worth doing
something and that notion
of not being good enough that notion of
being
worthwhile is one of the most
fascinating push pull parts of humanity
because if you don't believe that you're
worth something you'll never take action
but if you believe that you're worth too
much you won't take action and it's that
really fascinating uh um intersection of
yes you should love yourself for who you
are but yes to accomplish the things
that you want to do you're going to have
to be deeply unsatisfied with who you
are and push yourself forward so yeah I
found that one very very intriguing all
right the next one both Heaven and Hell
use the same information as either a
reward or a punishment so the knowledge
that Free Will doesn't exist in this one
is that piece of information and for a
certain personality the knowledge
that you aren't to blame I'll use that
word you aren't to blame for anything
because you are essentially a computer
algorithm and um given this input you
will get this output and that's it and
there's no sort of um I think they call
it a humongous hiding in your head
that's this autonomous being that you
know pulls and pushes the levers and is
truly free will meaning independent of
your biology and that for people
um that that maybe feel badly about
things that they've done in their life
or very low self-esteem or feel that
they've done bad things or that they are
bad people that for them that is such a
liberating thought that it is the very
definition of heaven but then for other
people who feel good about being able to
choose and that they aren't um you know
uh determined by something else that
really truly the beautiful things in
their life are the result of choices
that they've made and and the hardships
that they've struggled through like they
get to feel the um the wondrous nature
of having overcome something very
difficult and that you know there's
something special about them that
they've either developed or that they've
been given and that they pushed through
that and overcame those obstacles for
them to be robbed of
that is hell is the very definition of
watching yourself dissolve into
nothingness and where I truly f as a
person I believe in
um I believe that we're we're a product
of our biology and I don't know that
there really is any free will and what I
find utterly fascinating is I don't care
and that doesn't have any impact on how
I feel about the choices that I make and
I feel bad when I do something stupid or
mean or hurtful and I feel great when I
do what I consider to be the right thing
especially when it's hard and to keep
pushing and to shape my identity and to
act as if I control everything like that
makes me feel good that makes me feel
good about myself it makes me feel good
about what I've accomplished even though
some part of me
knows it's probably all an
illusion
and that's why I I once met another
totally different neuroscientist and he
said you know my whole life the biggest
question I want to answer is what is
consciousness and my response to that
was who cares
like of all the questions that hold no
um interest for me it's what is
consciousness because whether I'm
autonomous being um or whether I'm an
automaton I feel like I'm autonomous I
feel like I can act in a way that I
control I feel that I can do the things
that I want to do and so it doesn't
really matter to me which one is true
all right and the last thing um um One
Life In the book that they cover is
where you're forced to see the better
versions of yourself you're forced to
see the versions of yourself that you
could have been if you had made
different choices if you had done
different things and is that heaven or
hell
um this is an interesting notion I've
heard other people um flirt with this
before you know how would you feel if
you actually got to see what would
happen if You' made Choice b instead of
choice a if you had been a little bit
stronger if you'd put in a little bit
more work if you had really executed on
your potential what would that look like
and I don't I don't think there's any
escaping that there would be a certain
amount of heartbreak in that and I
guess the thing that oh man I would
really want is to be able to see that in
a It's a Wonderful Life kind of way
where you have the time to do something
about it that you can Glimpse what your
life would be like if you just overcame
this like I I'll tell you the one thing
for me that was my thing with anxiety I
really felt like when I wasn't anxious
that I had a superpower and when I was
anxious it was like [ __ ] Kryptonite
and it robbed me of everything and so I
just became hellbent to get over that to
do whatever I had to do to push past
that and get to the other side and it
was the excitement of who I could become
that made it worth pushing
through all right these are but a few of
The Amazing Stories in this book I can't
encourage you guys enough to read that
it it will make you think about your
life I think it will impact you I think
it will change the way that you approach
your life and approach the world in
general um they were utterly fascinating
they're short they're powerful they're
beautiful read them some by Dr David
Eagleman check it out all right guys
this is a weekly show if you haven't
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next time my friends be legendary take
care