Back to episode — Episode 1411 Scott Adams - Ice Cream, Ponies, and Sunsets Are Irrelevant to This Program
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eads. I'm just saying that before you put it in the comments because I know you will. I know you so well. Somebody's going to say "freaking lasers on their heads." Somebody's gonna do it. But you don't have to now because I did it for you. All right, how many of you would like to enjoy a thing called the simultaneous sip? That's right, all of you. And if you would like to enjoy it to its maximum…
← Previous segment →is a coffee mug or glass, a tankard, chalice, decanter, canteen, yoga flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I got some coffee right here. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything except shark attacks better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And watch it happen right now. Go.
Yeah, you would think that it would be harder for the sharks to attack because they've got to bite through the little masks first. I assume they're wearing masks.
I'm in Santorini, Greece right now, for anybody who didn't know it, and there's a statue here wearing a surgical mask. Some wag climbed over a fence and got to the place you're not supposed to get to and put a surgical mask on one of the pieces of art here. Pretty funny.
All right, well, I just tweeted it out this morning or retweeted. There's a little bit in Mashable. Mashable is something you should follow. It's a Twitter account and I guess a website, magazine site, whatever it is. But they have items on all the new cool technology, the stuff that you don't see in the regular news. And there is a mind-blowing story. Every once in a while you'll see a story and you'll say, "What?" Here's one. Apparently they have now developed an artificial arm and hand, you know, that's fully articulated, that can be controlled by a person's mind while that person is using their normal hands to do a task at the same time.
So in other words, they've got this test now. Apparently every person can't do it, but some number of people can repeat this experiment. So they'll give them a task where they're doing something with their two normal hands, and then they'll just simply, I think they just have to want it, just think about it, just sort of want the mechanical arm, which has some sensors attached obviously externally to your brain, just want it to reach over and pick up a bottle and hold it. And a number of the people can actually work with their two normal hands and have the mechanical hand come over and pick up their drink and give it to them while they're still working with their other two hands.
Are you freaked out by that? You should be. Have you ever known anybody who lost, let's say they had a stroke or something, and they lost control of any part of their body? The process to get back control of, let's say, an arm or a leg, to get your brain to control it again once that connection has been lost, is so creepy because all you have to do is want it basically. Now there are some tricks. One of the tricks is, have you ever heard of this, the what do they call it? It's like a mirrored box where you take your hand that works properly and put it in there so it looks like your other hand.
So if your right hand is good but your left hand needs rehabilitation because your brain is not connected to it,
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you put both hands under the thing and your brain will think that it's controlling your other hand because the mirror has reversed them, and then your brain connects to the hand that wasn't working and then you can use it. Does that just freak you out? Your brain is so elastic it can just want to control an arm, either your own arm that lost the connection through a stroke or even a freaking mecha…
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