Ever wondered if the juiciness of a chicken thigh trumps the classic breast in a spicy sandwich? Join us as we embark on a culinary expedition, tasting our way through the spicy chicken sandwich landscape, with a side of light-hearted banter about our own quirky food rules and preferences. Bryan even reveals his unexpected take on the age-old tater tots versus french fries debate, firing up a discussion on how personal tastes can lead to surprising conversations and revelations.
But it's not all about the chicken—we're sipping on "hustler juice" and diving headfirst into the indulgent world of Taco Bell's larger-than-life offerings. As we reminisce about Glenn Bell's legacy and the evolution of our fast-food favorites, we also find ourselves reflecting on our dietary convictions. From Starbucks customization to the pull of default choices, we uncover the philosophy buried in our everyday fast food experiences, sharing laughs and insights along the way.
Time to switch gears and talk time—how we perceive it, how it shapes us, and how, sometimes, it downright confuses us. From the linear progression of events to the cyclical patterns in life and the universe, we navigate through the philosophical and psychological mazes of time. We touch on COVID-19 as our new temporal milestone and even dip our toes into the effects of relativity on time, ensuring our listeners leave with their minds buzzing and perhaps, just maybe, a new way to view their next chicken sandwich.
Ever wondered if the juiciness of a chicken thigh trumps the classic breast in a spicy sandwich? Join us as we embark on a culinary expedition, tasting our way through the spicy chicken sandwich landscape, with a side of light-hearted banter about our own quirky food rules and preferences. Bryan even reveals his unexpected take on the age-old tater tots versus french fries debate, firing up a discussion on how personal tastes can lead to surprising conversations and revelations.
But it's not all about the chicken—we're sipping on "hustler juice" and diving headfirst into the indulgent world of Taco Bell's larger-than-life offerings. As we reminisce about Glenn Bell's legacy and the evolution of our fast-food favorites, we also find ourselves reflecting on our dietary convictions. From Starbucks customization to the pull of default choices, we uncover the philosophy buried in our everyday fast food experiences, sharing laughs and insights along the way.
Time to switch gears and talk time—how we perceive it, how it shapes us, and how, sometimes, it downright confuses us. From the linear progression of events to the cyclical patterns in life and the universe, we navigate through the philosophical and psychological mazes of time. We touch on COVID-19 as our new temporal milestone and even dip our toes into the effects of relativity on time, ensuring our listeners leave with their minds buzzing and perhaps, just maybe, a new way to view their next chicken sandwich.
Welcome to Help Yourself. Food and Philosophy with Brian and Nick. I'm Nick and I'm Brian. Fruit flies like an arrow, but time flies like a banana. Wait, no, I messed that up. Scratch that, reverse it, but cheatin' Brian.
Speaker 2:We'll see if that is actually true. If time flies like an arrow, we're going to be apparently talking about spoiler alert.
Speaker 1:But maybe fruit flies don't like a banana, I don't know who knows who knows. Everything is abroad.
Speaker 2:But cheatin' what am I eating? Well, I wanted to share actually a story about the last 24 hours of my life. I've had two different chicken sandwiches from two different places, so I went on a little bit of a chicken sandwich tear over the last 24 hours. What intentionally? That's the only tear. Yeah, somewhat intentionally, somewhat unintentionally. Both of the chicken sandwiches were spicy chicken sandwiches in their own right, but spicy for different reasons, and I enjoyed them a lot. But I was really just going to sort of talk about the fact that chicken sandwiches are sort of like popular right Every single place. Now they have chicken sandwiches all over the place and locally here we've got a restaurant, at least local to me it's a little far for you, but that does basically just chicken. It's chicken and beer is what the title of it is, and so it's a little on the news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So I had their spicy sandwich, which has like First of all, one of the awesome things about it is it's a chicken thigh and not a chicken breast, which is a lot more. I won't say the word that everyone cringes at, but it's juicier, juicy. No, I wasn't going to say the other word, but anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just like in the moist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it rhymes with sealing joist. Yes, everyone wants a sealing moist. So I had the sandwich there and I hadn't had one for a while. The good thing is it wasn't super spicy. Ironically, we were just talking about spicy food in our Toastmasters meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1:Is it ironic when you're the one that?
Speaker 2:selected the topic. Sorry, it's interesting. I'll say it's very interesting that we were talking about, and you're like, wait a minute, brian, didn't you choose the topic? Yeah, okay, so you're just talking about the same thing. Oh hey, stop pulling the curtain back, man, come on this is the magic of podcasting.
Speaker 1:I'm metastasizing, so chicken sandwich.
Speaker 2:Chicken sandwich. It was really good. It came with a jalapeno coleslaw on it, so it was a jalapeno coleslaw with a chicken thigh that was fried and it had habanero oil on it for extra spiciness and it was really, really flavorful, tasty, all the good things Like mayo. Yeah, so it was. Yeah, it did have some mayo in there.
Speaker 1:Is it a coleslaw?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so enjoyed it thoroughly. But then the cool thing about it was I had the chance to compare because I had another chicken sandwich very, very quickly thereafter. So think about I had dinner one night and then lunch the next day, a chicken sandwich. So the other chicken sandwich was a chicken breast and it was spicy because the breading on it was like a Cajun seasoning breading, so just without any sauces or anything else. The actual chicken breast itself was spicy and it was good, it was really good.
Speaker 2:It was a lot drier than the other sandwich because it didn't really come with anything on it. It did have toppings on the side so I put pickles and a tomato on it to make it a little bit more or less dry, I should say. And both of them had like really super soft buns, which one of my pet peeves is a bun that is really hard to bite through on a burger or something like that. It just All your toppings will fly out and so yeah, so both of those I had and they were really really good. One side I had mac and cheese with the side from one and I had what was the side for the oh, tater tots, your favorite tater tots.
Speaker 2:Oh, and I was telling you have to know, nick, the person I was eating with. I was telling them your rule about french fries and that you're allowed to eat tater tots but not. And you're like oh gosh, are we gonna get back into this again? That Brian can't comprehend. But I was telling them how I'm like, how I went through the whole thing with you on the podcast, where I'm like wait, so you can eat hash browns, you can eat tater tots, you can eat this. But they're like.
Speaker 2:And then they went into the same exact thing. Just to know that I'm not crazy. I mean, I'm crazy, but just to know that other people might think along the same lines as me. They went down the same path. They're like yeah, but what about steak fries? Could you have steak fries? What about shoestring french fries? And I'm like no, no french fries, but a potato in other formats he's allowed to have. And then I explained your rationale is not every single restaurant has tater tots, so it saves you on the calories. And then, when you do get to a restaurant that has tater tots, you're like cool, I can get tater tots. Right, was I summarizing that correctly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not the default. I don't feel like I have to get tater tots, but it's like do you want fries with that? There's almost this assumption that you're gonna get the fries. But if I say no to the fries, nobody assumes I'm gonna get tater tots. So right because, remember, I'm kind of a peacemaker and I want to avoid confrontation or disrupting people's expectations. Yeah. But if I just have that rule where it's like, I just know there isn't like a script for oh, you don't want fries, do you want tots?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So I break the script, I break that pattern and you know it's truly a decision of okay, do I want potato, a potato based side, or not?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or do I just do better by getting anything? But it forces the unconscious decision into a conscious decision.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, the funny thing is that I'm not I think I've said this when we had this conversation last I'm not a big fan of french fries anyway. So when I get, I actually will prefer towards like I'll get a sandwich and I'll get a side of coleslaw, or I'll get a side of like that and that one, I got a side of mac and cheese, which is probably not the healthiest. I'd probably be better off getting fries and that you know. But I'm not a if given the chance and if there's not a good side, then I'll just eat the sandwich and won't have a side with it.
Speaker 1:So you're saying you could quit anytime you want. You don't really enjoy it I could quit.
Speaker 2:I could try this anytime.
Speaker 1:You just have the habit. I mean that's, that's what that's like addicts who are, like, observed neurologically and also interviewed. They, they don't actually enjoy the addictive behavior they partake in like they don't like the inherent joy of doing something right. They don't actually there's not. The enjoyment circuit, so to speak, doesn't fire, it's just the habit, it's the routine. It's their. There are certain foods that I get the reward, but they don't actually inherently enjoy the thing.
Speaker 2:There's certain foods that I'll eat that I am either angry while I'm eating them or angry after I eat them, and French fries is sort of one of those foods. Like I'm like huh, didn't really Like. Now I feel bad, like I feel I ate maybe too much, like just French fries. A lot of times they'll give you like a heaping serving and then I'm a clean plate club kind of person, so if it's on the plate it's probably going inside me and not the best way to put it, but anyway, Poor parsley, I never had a chance.
Speaker 2:But basically I will. You know, typically we'll go through that and finish what's on the plate. But then I get angry that I'm like, why did I? I don't even like French fries, Like I was like. Even when I'm eating them I'm like, ah, these are okay. I mean it's not like I hate them, it's not like I dislike them, Like I will not eat them, it's just I don't prefer them. And but then and same thing popcorn at the movies is another one, Like we always get a large popcorn and then the kids will eat some and then I'll eat some. I mean, Jen will eat some and then she usually hands it, like when they're all done she hands me and there's probably like a third of a large popcorn left. But I don't even like popcorn. But it's here, it's just handed to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's handed to me and I start eating it and I'm like why am I eating this? I don't even like, I don't really even like it. And then I have popcorn stuck in my teeth and I'm like well, it's your own fault, you idiot. You know so. So anyway, long story short.
Speaker 1:The chicken sandwich is really good Chicken sandwich, mac and cheese and French fries.
Speaker 2:But I had to bring it up though, because I was telling him the whole story of like the voicemail that I still have saved on my phone from the one time that you broke, and he was telling me. He said he was like imitating the voicemail and he's like, he's like, he's like Brian. I really need help. I really need help. I just I broke the French fry thing. I need you to. Can you come pick me up Like you were calling your sponsor, like you just went into a bar and had three shots.
Speaker 1:Like I'm hungover on. I got my foot to drive.
Speaker 2:I know you're like. Please, I need your help. I'm reaching out to my sponsor.
Speaker 1:That's so funny.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So yeah, so those were good. The tater tots were good that I had. With the second one they were real crispy on the outside, so very good, and I actually do like a really good tater tot. I'll say that, you know, now I'm all of a sudden I'm like arguing for. I'm like, yeah, fries are stupid, you should only get tater tots. Like I'm just all of a sudden arguing for your premise, anyway, so yeah. So that's my eating over the last, basically within the last 24 hours here, 48 hours. And then what do I have to drink? I got my trusty water thing that has water in it.
Speaker 2:And then I have a blender bottle, blender, blender bottle, blender, blender bottle, blender, blender bottle, a blender bottle that has this thing called amino energy in it. And just to just to like, I took two scoops, which is about 100 milligrams of caffeine and then, and then I drank about half of it and I filled it back up, so it's watered down, watered down amino energy, so it's a little bit of flavored water. And then I have a cup of coffee, like a regular cup of coffee here at the office, and the worst saying ever on a cup I just don't like sayings like this it says hustle juice on it and I just I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's like Well, just don't let anybody take a Sharpie and put an R at the end of the hustle.
Speaker 2:It's like. It's like when, when someone has a, you know like when a mom has a wine glass and it says like mommy's go juice and it's sort of like wine or something. You know like that kind of thing. Or I'm like really I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean it's sort of funny, but it's just like an indicator there, that's.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean it's not. Yeah, I don't taste in your mouth.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what we're doing right now is I don't know how to feel about it. Like I just see it and I'm like am I supposed to be laughing at that? Am I supposed to be? Is that cute? Is it not cute? What is it? Are they hiding a problem?
Speaker 1:Exactly Are they? Are they humanizing?
Speaker 2:a serious problem. They're immediately dropping the kids off at school and then, just like at 10 am, they're just drinking a glass of wine. Is that what this is, or what you know, anyway? The hustle juice is just a metaphor for toxin Another interesting thing because there were multiple coffee cups and this is the one that I selected. So apparently I do like the hustler juice.
Speaker 1:Is that worse or better than I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Anyway, those are my Brian's Beverage Corner. Three beverages I've got going right now and that is enough talking for me right now. What is your? What are you eating and drinking?
Speaker 1:I have before me one of my favorite mistakes twice over. It's the Taco Bell combo two chicken chalupas oversized I mean any size from Taco Bell's oversized cherry, pepsi and Nacho Fries.
Speaker 2:Wow, I think they are my fries.
Speaker 1:No. Anyway, I was waiting for you to detect the irony and you went with a pun. That was great. I did so. Yeah, I broke my vow and you're hearing it and the audience heard it.
Speaker 2:Yes, nacho Fries, because those are fries.
Speaker 1:Are they actual fries?
Speaker 2:I thought they were like are they actual fries?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're great for potatoes. They just have like some kind of like a coating Like a coating. That is hilarious. That is hilarious, they make them.
Speaker 2:That like a minute ago. You didn't tell me that before either, Like before we recorded anything and like you're sitting there going, oh no, here it comes. I, just the whole audience, is going to know. Oh, I didn't tell you this podcast episode is an intervention for your French fry problem.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me just finish this. One more fry, okay. Yeah, but they are really good, though, if I go two and a half years between fries. I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good. I'd say that's a pretty good the pittance on the cuisine, yeah. I'd say the habit is pretty strong If you're going a couple of years between each one.
Speaker 1:And the falling off the wagon really did fall prey to that default sort of thing. Right, I wanted the drink and I wanted the entree and the fries were there. Okay, I went with the default option. Yeah. And for that little moment I was tired of fighting the fight. But now having to talk about it and face the feeling that I'm feeling about letting my conviction waver, it's like, you know, in that moment if it didn't feel worth it, but in this moment it's like, yeah, it's worth it, it's a good reminder, yeah.
Speaker 2:Glenn Bell is like is thinking right now, man, my marketing machine works so well.
Speaker 1:Is that why I didn't call it the bell? It's because the bell comes from the top of the bell. It's founded by Glenn Bell in California yeah.
Speaker 2:The only reason I know that is because I listen to another podcast that talks about fast food. They go through who started certain podcast things. They have the Dave Thomas trophy on there for Dave Thomas's, wendy's and Glenn Bell. Yeah, they talk about a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I will say if you go to Taco Bell and you like Taco Bell and you like burgers, can you ever have an opportunity to go to Taco John's? Really, yeah, it's sort of toward the Well. I don't travel a whole lot, so I don't know how pervasive and where the hell I go.
Speaker 2:It's in the Midwest.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I was going to say I've seen them in the Midwest but they have a Taco burger that is just really good. It's really good. I remember loving them as a kid when I started out my life in that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've visited and gone back. It's still really good. Poor quality, but since everything has equally gone down in quality, it's really good. Yeah, it's still really good.
Speaker 2:It's all relative, right, yeah, and that's what I've noticed as I've gotten older. But then I try to figure out over the you know, through the passage of time, if my taste buds have changed or if the ingredients for things like I used to go to Taco Bell all the time, and now it tastes different to me, and so I'm wondering, hey, are they using cheaper ingredients? Or is it me Be it getting older, my taste buds have changed and so therefore and I don't eat there as often and so I'm not quote unquote used to it, I don't know. I do know that they have done exactly what you said. Yeah, they do reduce I don't want to say reduce the quality. I will say that they probably have constantly evaluated the cost associated with ingredients so that they can maximize their profit, right?
Speaker 1:Wow, that was a very politically correct term to say they use cheaper ingredients.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying I was trying not to pass judgment. As a peacekeeper. I don't want no beef with Taco Bell.
Speaker 1:Oh, they don't want beef either. Exactly All they offer is mistake.
Speaker 2:All right and scared chicken. What are you drinking, though? I saw you drink something a second ago.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I've got water from my more Cal Bell bottle, glass bottle that has been stripped of its plastic. And then I have a green your own cup, ordered to the mobile app of Starbucks.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Decaf Grande iced hazelnut oat milk shaken espresso.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it's a milkshake cream.
Speaker 1:So it's sugar. No, it's lots of sugar. No caffeine.
Speaker 2:That's complicated.
Speaker 1:And all kinds of fill it. Yeah yeah, it's so important to have any kind of status as my uniqueness of coffee.
Speaker 2:Like half calf, half decaf, with a shot of espresso and an oat milk side.
Speaker 1:And one thing I haven't had in a long time I need to go back to just for the fun of it, you know, because I'm the kind of guy that will like get a beer or a drink because there's a pun to the name, you know. Yes. And I came up with my own coffee concoction where I said I want you know like one, one pump of hazelnut, one pump of coconut, one pump of I don't know some other nut and I and I like almond milk or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I call it my local nut espresso.
Speaker 2:And do they? Have they taken to that? Have they like they're? We're going to add this as a new menu item.
Speaker 1:It was years ago that I did it and it wasn't Starbucks, so I'll give it another shot not espresso, let's see if, if I like it or if it was just the name I gave it that made it fun. And if it is, then I'll just keep ordering it until they, you know, create a conversation about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:You heard it here first folks Well as I saw as I'm seeing the clock tick away here on our episode we're losing it we're going to get into our topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, the philosophy of time, that's this one yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We decided that we were going to right. We're going to dive into different aspects of the concept of time and when we it's a timely subject. Yeah, and when we dove in that pool was really deep, that just we should have probably started at the shallow end and waited our whole life to get our way in. But no, we just dove into deep end and it's yeah. We're barely barely hanging on here treading water.
Speaker 1:There is a way you can do a soft intro to it. Some of it. I found a video on YouTube. I think it was sponsored by time and I believe it's Brian Green. I'll get the link and we'll confirm it. He goes through different five levels of explaining time and he starts at, like the child level and then goes to the general level and then the, you know, onto graduate, student level and maybe even beyond that, and you get to see at what point you get lost.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:One of the top comments was can I have the fetus little yeah?
Speaker 2:Just no concept of time at all, just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and there is a. I don't know if this falls into the. I know we want to start with the philosophy, but since it's relevant to, what you just said there is a very they've done studies with kids and there's a very innate sort of spatial dimension that kids seem to have to time and the way they describe things. They observe that we, when we would use time like words to describe something, they use more spatial words. Got it, but yeah, it's just that's something I want to explore more before I speak more to you.
Speaker 2:It makes sense, though. It makes sense that you know you. When you have I guess you know, for I guess I will probably get into this but like when you have less constraints on your time or less things that are like, hey, I have to mark a place in time, meaning I have to go to work at this time, or I have to do this or I have to do that, it seems logical that your experience of time is going to be less rigid. Like that. It's just going to be more like you know, like like you go on vacation and you don't wear your watch and you're, you can sleep in and you don't have an alarm waking you up in the morning All of a sudden. Time feels a lot different than when you're in the grind of working every day and doing all the things you feel like you have to do every day.
Speaker 1:Right, or, yeah, you can, if you go like on a binge watch of YouTube and you increase the playback speed, just do a good solid hour of watching at you know, faster speed and then you go and have like a real conversation with a real person. It just feels so slow.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I've done that with Just get to the point yeah, listening to podcasts, I've got time for this. You speed up a podcast and then you go back to listening to something at actual regular one time speed and you're like why are they talking so slowly? And it's not right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's really really fun is they sound drunk if you go to like 85% of speed. Yes, it's like they slur their words.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah and they're so slow, All right, Well, so yeah. So the first thing I guess the first area that we want to talk about was exactly what you said is sort of the philosophical concepts of time or you know different ways that time is viewed, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we also should probably follow our tactic of defining time or, at least for the sake of our conversation, what we mean by time.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's a difficult thing to define, which is why we're talking about it for three episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair. Okay, well, one I think how to say this is probably not all-encompassing, but in times of password, I've thought about it. To me it's just time. Is the measure of change Right Like? Any concept we have of where time is frozen right.
Speaker 1:You could freeze time, Everything stops. No change, no difference. Some of our early concepts of time is talking about things before and after, Like you don't have to have a clock to talk about and this is what happened and this is what happened, and after that, this and next we'll do this. It's like a series of events or causal relationships.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's interesting because one of the things, one of the different ways that people define time and I'll link to this article, but we have a there was an article written by a PhD that you know, back in 2021, that talks about excuse me, talks about a lot of these different concepts of time, and one of those is linear time and that's what you were just talking about, which is, you know, this happens, then this happens, then this happens, and you can visualize that on a straight line where, sort of like your pithy thing at the beginning, time flies like a banana. No, time flies like an arrow, you know, is that it goes straight and it keeps going and the part that's left behind is gone and it hasn't reached its destination yet, whatever. So that's sort of more the linear time and it's and that's the way that most people think of time. So it's, you know, talking about our watches and our clocks the mark time.
Speaker 2:That's how they measure it is. It's moving forward and it's marking that time as it moves forward right.
Speaker 1:Right, except our clocks are cyclical.
Speaker 2:Circular, Circular yeah. That is true yes, but then you have you know seconds to minutes, to hours, to days, to weeks, to years, to millennia.
Speaker 1:All those are roughly arbitrary. Yes well, it's all arbitrary.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you get down to it, all of it is just a made up construct to try to quantify something right? Why'd you give me that face? Nick, just gave me a face like. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I'm multitasking.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. So I thought the face was at me.
Speaker 1:It's taking concentration, to listen and think at the same time. You're, you are perfectly perfect in every perfect way, brian.
Speaker 2:To be in you.
Speaker 1:Thank you Good, don't let my face criticize you.
Speaker 2:I get worried, you know. So the other thing that I found that was interesting was there's another theory of time which is sort of what you alluded to, which is called cyclical time, and it says in this article many early cultures had a cyclical conception of time, sometimes called the wheel of time. Those cultures are the Incan, the Mayan, hinduism, buddhism and Jainism. They perceive time as consisting of repeated ages and time periods. Helps. It helps explain the idea of reincarnation. Circular, repeating conceptions of time are still used today by some cultures, including in India. So you know, that's yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I was just going to say it's an interesting thing to think, going back to some of our, you know, self-important cognitive biases and things like. That is like we want to make sure that we feel important about things and I think that the you know, the fact that I'm doing something that nobody else has ever done like in this particular moment, right now, in this present moment that we're dealing with, makes me feel like oh, wow, okay, cool. But most likely people in the past and other things have done exactly what we're doing in some different format.
Speaker 1:So Sure it's. Yeah, there's a some kind of cycle to things, some patterns of, you know, exploration and stasis, exploration and stasis. So there's, you know, out with the old and the new, yin and yang, different patterns, that sort of repeat themselves as one increases, the other decreases.
Speaker 2:Well it goes to that cognitive bias the cognitive bias of declineism, I think, plays into this, because basically you're saying like, oh, my stress is worse and it's harder now than it was back then. Back then everything was so innocent. Back then everything was so simple. Back then everything was this, and now it's all hard and complicated and I don't have any money and I don't have any time and whatever. Right. In essence, you're saying everything's getting worse and worse and worse, and that I think that the cyclical nature of time doesn't lend itself to that, because it's basically like no other people in the past have had the stresses you have, they had the struggles that you have, they have all the, and so it's. I'm probably paraphrasing a little bit, or at least talking peripherally to the idea that they're talking about in the cyclical nature of time, but the point- is you know yeah.
Speaker 1:If you're talking about economies or seasons of the year, or even maybe even the expansion of the universe, there could be ebbs and flows, right, like it's all about your time context.
Speaker 1:So kids growing up right now, with the economy the way it is, think that they have a bit of declineism, right, that they can't afford rent, they can't afford a house, they don't have a living wage, like things are only going to get worse and worse and worse. But perhaps people who've lived through or been alive through a couple of generations see this more as sort of a winter of our economy, and you know that, you know this too shall pass and it might be that you know the discomfort of that particular generation is going to be such that creates the impetus for them to create the springtime of their generation. Yeah, and that's another way of sort of out with the old and with the new, another form of, you know, new life into the existing system of whatever it is. But yeah, just like with every darkness comes the dawn, with every winter comes the spring, there's a cyclical nature to change and the progression and regression of it. You know Right, and we've talked before about order and chaos. One person's order is another person's chaos. Right.
Speaker 1:It's like, hey, you might decide tomorrow, but hey, nick, I'm just getting things straight with my family and career right now. I can't do this podcast anymore. Okay, you're creating more order for your life and that's a positive progression of change for you. Yeah. But then that creates chaos for me, right? Yeah, and regression for me, Like what am I going to do with my free time? I really enjoy talking with you, Brian. I don't know what else to. How else am I going to scratch this itch? That's you know.
Speaker 2:There's certainly more productive ways to deal with your time than hanging out with me.
Speaker 1:Right Now, you're perfectly, perfectly perfect, as I said before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's just keep that illusion going oh yeah, I do so back to time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talk about the era of time, and even I'm sure those who have a cyclical concept of time in terms of seasons or reincarnation, they're still, they still have to be faced with the fact that time is not like a spatial dimension, right? Yeah, you can't. We only go one direction. You can't go up or down with time, you can't go left or right with time, you can only go, let's just say, to the right. It seems like neurologically maybe, at least in Western cultures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the left or right.
Speaker 1:Pre-conception is from left to right, like a timeline. I don't know if it's different where languages like read from right to left, for instance. That'd be a cool thing to research. I just didn't have time for it. Well, I didn't make time for it, but yeah it's. That's where I think part of that era of time comes from is like you can't Arrows, don't fly backwards. Right the hands of the clock, don't go the other direction. You can't turn back time and take back all the words that hurt you. What?
Speaker 2:does that do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say. You can get a really nice tattoo across your butt, though.
Speaker 1:Yes, no regrets. Anyway, sorry, Interrupted yeah so I guess what do we do with that? I don't know if that falls in the philosophy or not, but it's like nothing really goes backwards when it comes to time.
Speaker 2:Well the interesting thing is that you are With what you were talking about. You're jumping into a subject that we were going to get into in the next episode, I believe.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I can walk it back.
Speaker 2:But just as a preview. Yeah, you mentioned time as a dimension. That's one of the things that they talk about in basically different theories of time. There is a static. I think this actually does fall into this one. This is our subject today. There's a static concept of time and then there's a dynamic versus a concept of time. I think I'm talking about the right thing. This is where it gets dicey man I know, it's mind-bending. There's so much to this.
Speaker 1:I know there is the idea of determinism, the laws of physics and the theory of relativity, which affects time because of speed of light and relative perceptions of what happens and things. It's all consistent, cohesive and predictable. There's no denying the nature of things People have done brain scans of people and when people become conscious of their decision, when they think they've made a decision is well after when their neurological systems and circuitry would indicate that the decision was actually made. It is influenceable. Mentalists can hijack your decision-making process and your body language clues and such where they know stuff about you, or they can get you to do things or believe things or say things in the moment that you didn't realize.
Speaker 1:It's like if it's all different strings that are just pulled and have already been pulled or were pulled in the past, which caused certain other strings in reaction to be pulled, then all of the so-called choices and changes were predetermined previously. There's this idea of determinism that the free will is an illusion, not just time.
Speaker 2:So I found what I was tied to the dynamic versus static theory of time. The static theory of time part of it says the universe is spread out into four similar dimensions which make up the unified four-dimensional manifold appropriately called space-time Three spatial dimensions and one chronological dimension and then the dynamic theory of time.
Speaker 2:The universe is spread out into three dimensions of physical, space and time, like modality. It is a completely different kind of dimension from spatial dimensions, so it's like a separate. It's not a fourth dimension that's all combined into one gigantic thing that we're living in. It's a separate dimension, that's by itself. And so basically, like I said, I guess the bottom line is that there are those two different theories and it's more physics, like scientific, try to quantify the actual time. And how does it pass? What is it exactly what you're saying? Does it fly through? Does the arrow fly through the air? And that's how it's going and it's by itself. Or is it just one big thing? The arrow is going in that direction and it's going at this speed and it's going at this, so it's all wrapped up into one big ball of time theory. Sure.
Speaker 1:One, and I guess there's this context too of like okay, yeah, so maybe the arrow of time, like we're all in this planet, we're all flying through space at the same speed and the rate of change of that quote constant. But then we move around on the arrow, like we make decisions and choices on the arrow that almost certainly have no impact on the arrow itself, the trajectory and whatnot. We'd all have to jump at the same time on the same side of the arrow to you have the Superman theory Weird thing like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the fly background fly really fast backwards, make the earth spin in the opposite direction, and then time travels backwards.
Speaker 1:Right, which we can't test that theory we can't disprove, right yeah. But it's not like the planet is a clock, is it? You just wind it backwards and everything goes backwards, right? I was that idea though of entropy, where everything is sort of floating towards disorder. Yes. Universe is expanding from the Big Bang. Where did the order originate? Which does have some fun, not fun. Interesting implications of how religion, western religion and science have some overlap.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because in the beginning God, who's like the God of order, satan's the God of chaos and created the heavens and the earth. But if it's all going towards entropy, then it's sort of the creation of evil, it's the creation of disorder. Right.
Speaker 1:But by changing, because changing anything from perfection is therefore imperfection. But what if all of that expansion, this change over time expansion of the universe is? This is a huge crazy. What if? But going back to that cyclical idea of that expansion, what if, eventually it contracts Right? But back into that single quote, solitary piece of order.
Speaker 1:Right where it's like all we are is just a small part inside an extra dimensional beings long, and right now they're breathing in, but several billion years into the future they're going to, you know they're going to breathe out. Our perception of several billion years.
Speaker 2:Huh, our perception of several billion years, but their perception of one breath. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I know that's a wild thing to say, wild thing to bring up in a conversation about time. I mean, if you want to, reference one of our other topics.
Speaker 2:You know we did talk about sylipsism and that's sort of what that is. Is what it's, that existential kind of like? Are we really on just a planet Like, is everything that we know and science that we've studied and we have a we can see in our known solar system and in our known universe? Is that really what it is? Or are we just not seeing the big?
Speaker 1:we can't back up far enough to see the big picture, or there's we can't go off the arrow, right, you know, to see the stream or the flow, you know Right.
Speaker 2:Yet there's the theory, obviously, that somebody could be somebody or something, or some entity or something could be observing that. And I mean and that's going back to what you said is, you know, I think a lot of religion actually is goes around this, that topic of like there's a, there's a, there's a being that can be so far removed that they get to see the forest, and we only get to see the trees, and so they understand what the passage of time is, they understand what and we've talked about this before on the podcast, we've been doing this long enough. We've talked about almost everything on podcast, but basically, you know, that's the sort of theory behind it is like this omnipotent, omniscient being or entity or Energy.
Speaker 2:Mm hmm, that Does understand all of this stuff and we're just trying to make sense of it, and so that's one of the ways we try to make sense of it, I think is, yeah, there's this Again, there's this thing that is the universe or whatever it is, and but yeah, I when we get back to the philosophies of time, though, there's that, like you said, the static, yes, and the dynamic.
Speaker 1:I think I've heard physicists which I know aren't philosophers, but physicists talk about that. There is no now and there's no past and there's no presence. It's like present or future. It's like it's all. It's just all one big thing.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Block.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Already happened or is? Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's interesting you bring that up because the name for that is presentism versus eternalism. So Presentism yes.
Speaker 1:Eternalism is the one, that Right Is the one you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and presentism is the idea that the only thing that really truly exists is the moment that you're in right now, the present, that one's fleeting moment, because that would make sense if it's. If you're talking about a linear theory of time, where you're On an arrow and it's going in that direction and it doesn't go up down sideways, it only goes straightforward, then the only thing that you have is just right, that moment in time that marked where the arrow is at that specific moment. Right, whereas If the, if the arrow, could you know, everything is all interlinked and intermingled. Then, yeah, eternalism, because it says that's the view that the past, present and future are all equally real and that our perception of only the experience now is being being real is merely a matter of our brain's consciousness, and arbitrary place and time. So that's that, that arbitrary. There's what I said before is like isn't this all arbitrary? Isn't it all just a construct that we, we are like well, we got to figure out a way to like, mark the date, like, oh, the sun comes up, the sun comes down. Well, let's mark that somehow. How do we mark that? You know, and which is?
Speaker 2:I'll tell you why my argument is, for that is legitimate, the fact that we have daylight savings time, the fact that we arbitrarily, at a given time, will just go hey, you know what, we're going to move our clocks an hour back. Hey, you know what, now we're going to move our clocks for that, to me, says all of time is just a thing that we just made up and we decide, we control it. We just say, yeah, we know what. If we wanted to say today, you know what tomorrow we're going to do, we're going to flip a and am and PM. So tomorrow everyone's going to work at 12 am. By noon, you're eating lunch at 12 am and you're asleep at 12 pm. Right, we could flip night for day if we wanted to. Would that affect anything, except for the fact that we would just now say, hey, I'm eating lunch and it's midnight or it's.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's all we decided to call the night day and the day night Right.
Speaker 2:It. Would that really? Would that affect anything? No, we would still go to work during the daytime. Most likely we wouldn't be like, oh well, now we have to be there at 12 pm. It's like, no, you work when it's daylight hours, so or what used to be called daylight Right.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Which to me, is like the crazy. That's the biggest argument that it's all just made up, like it's all just a thing that we just decided. We're going to do it this way, yeah.
Speaker 1:And and we're really quickly getting into, like the psychology and perceptions of time.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 2:But, I'm just saying that in terms of the presentism and the eternalism. I feel like you know what. The reason why is because eternalism is says that our perception of the only experienced quote unquote now being real is merely a matter of the brain's consciousness and our arbitrary place in time. So that that could be our place in time meaning hey, we decided at one point that there was going to be a year zero and we are now 2024 years away from that year zero, right, and we basically just decided to have an anniversary. We basically just say, hey, you know what, how can we celebrate an anniversary? Hey, let's start with zero and just start counting here and I'm sorry if there's anyone listening, that's not meant to demean the birth of Christ and that defining, you know, defining thing in history.
Speaker 1:But we do that organically right, Like any significant event we talk about in terms of coming back to that before and after. Right. And here more recently, there's plenty of stories we tell you know before the pandemic, during the pandemic and after the pandemic right. Yeah, Before COVID. So you know, we talk about BC now in terms of before COVID. Yeah. So it's a point of reference, right, and that comes into again the psychology, where there's parts of our circuitry, and even our language, where time is like a spatial dimension. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You know, time is a point of reference. Or if you and I wanted to meet somewhere, we have to know the time, otherwise we're not going to meet. Yeah, yeah, right, we're not going to connect. We might know all I know. I might know exactly where, on the Empire State Building, I'm going to meet you, yeah, but you're only going to be there for a certain period of time before you give up. Stop waiting on me, you know. So we can't. We can't meet, and then. But then there's also like looking back or talking about going forward. We're going to do this and this and this. Why do we talk about it back and forward? Because it's part of our concept that time flies like an arrow, right. Right, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well maybe that's just the teaser to what we're going to talk about in the next episode.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, and there was something that I was going to say to add to that, but it was talking about what was it? It was I think it was actually getting into our next concept of time, but there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of things like that where it's just a like it's a necessary thing that we have in, you know, making things orderly, of marking that time, and in fact, now, as we do, as humans, we always want to continue to, you know perfect. So now we have, like these hyper accurate atomic clocks that keep time, like you know. So it's not a mechanical thing. That's like. Here's what a second is, because that mechanical thing, no matter how fine you get that mechanical thing, it's always going to be slightly. It can be slightly different. It can slow down, it can speed up, right. Atomic clock, atomic particles obviously they're going to be consistent in the way that they're.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what they're well, but that's what they're, that's what the theory is, you know, is that we have an atomic clock that is the accurate, the most accurate that we can get.
Speaker 1:right, Right, but but once you take two atomic clock clocks and separate them, like if you put like. There was one video I saw where they said that if you put one atomic clock on the table and you put one on the floor beneath it, they will get out of sync because of the because of relativity and the gravity, gravitational pull of the earth, that I think. They said that the core of the earth is 2.5 years younger than the crust. Dude, I can't do this, I can't do it anymore. I can't stop, dude.
Speaker 2:I can't Hot. You're killing me. My brain hurts.
Speaker 1:I can't function if I don't, if you taught yeah, if you were moving, you were talking about how. What was it you said to you were talking about how two different things are moving. Uh-huh, and that makes it difficult. I forgot.
Speaker 2:What you said earlier today. Was it about, like the time space thing?
Speaker 1:Maybe, but but that's that's it, right? Is that our perception of time differs?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um from, not only by our distance, but by the speed at which we're moving. So time, because we're all moving roughly at the same speed because, we're all spinning on the planet at the same time right. There's no difference in the sun seems to be in the same place in the sky, for near each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And all that jazz. But once we're both if two objects moving differently, different directions um then just everything's different. I'm going to see things sooner than you will, even if we're looking in the same direction, or if you're getting further, for me then things are going to go slower and slower, or? Get to you later and later. Then they'll get to me If I'm moving, looking the same direction, but moving towards it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't even know, I'm my brain is broken. I'm breaking the stuff seriously, like I'll just use the rest of this time to stutter and, you know, drool out of the rest of my mouth because I don't even know what's going on.
Speaker 1:And in this episode you get to verbally see Brian drooling into real time.
Speaker 2:real time in real time, Going into a cognitive coma at the prospect of time.
Speaker 1:Oh, real time, I got it, real time.
Speaker 2:Real time. Well, that's enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's good. Well, so then yeah so in the next couple episodes.
Speaker 2:I think next episode we're going to talk about sort of what we got into a little bit there, which is perception of time, like how you know. Those were sort of some of the philosophies, obviously not an exhaustive list, but talking about just how people deal with time, perception of time, things like that. So I think that's it All right. Well, we hope you listen to the next one.
Speaker 1:We're not going to draw any conclusions here. We're just going to get ourselves confused. Come along for the read.
Speaker 2:Exactly All right. Yeah, thank you yeah.