the last time we were here we got maybe a third of the way through this story

the story of Pinokio and the transformation of a marionette into something hypothetically real

I'm gonna backtrack a few slides and it'll get us into it again

so you remember that the blue fairy, so I would say that the benevolent element of mother nature

in the schemata that we are going to use to investigate mythology

was more or less allowed her entrance because Gepetto was a good guy and he wished for the right thing

and so in some sense... here's a way of thinking about that... you know

genetic / environmental studies on children's temperament have revealed something quite interesting

which is that the shared environment that children have within a family

so that would be what's the same about your environment and your brother's environment, the same

doesn't have that much effect on your temperament or his temperament

'cause the presumption always was that within a family there is a shared environment, right?

and something was common about the environment to every child within that environment

but there isn't much of a shared environmental effect on temperament

so then you can say, well that makes it appear as though isn't that relevant in relationship to the development of temperament

but you could also suggest something else

you could suggest that if parenting is occurring properly, the effect of the shared environment should be very close to zero

and the reason for that is that you establish an individual relationship with each child

and the environment is actually a microenvironment that's composed of your observations of this child and that specific child's interaction with you

like to some degree, if there is a shared environment, that means that you're forcing the same principles on every child

so my suspicions are, although I don't know this, and the research hasn't been done

that in bad families there's a shared environmental effect, but in good families that minimizes

so that lets the child's biological predisposition, roughly, manifest itself with support and in some positive manner

well, I don't want to extend the analogy too far, but you can imagine

that, and this is what this film proposes, if you aim properly in relationship to your child

what you're trying to do is to establish an individual relationship and to allow them to move towards

whatever their particular expression of individuality happens to be

and that's... that would be the same as allowing nature to take its course in some sense

at least nature in its positive guise, and that's exactly what happens here

the other thing that happens, of course, is that the cricket, for reasons that aren't clear, precisely

is knighted by the blue fairy and serves as Pinokio's conscience

although he isn't very good at it, which is a very peculiar thing, and quite a marked point that the film is making

that that conscience actually has something to learn, too

and there's actually a Freudian element to that, you know, because Freud thought of the superego

as the internalization, roughly speaking, of the father,

and it could be very severe, the superego, so like a really strict father, really tyrannical father inside your head

although I think it's better to think about the superego as the internalized representation of society at large

mediated to some degree through your parents, 'cause it's not as if your father, even assuming he's tyrannical

is the inventor of all those tyrannical rules, he's the propagator of them

but he's actually a proxy voice, even if it's just for the harsh side of society, he's the proxy voice for society

and because we're social creatures, the utility of having an internal social voice to guide you

although, again, you seem to be able to follow it or not follow it, which I also find spectacularly interesting

because, obviously if it was an unerring guide, you could just follow it

and if it was an unerring guide, you wouldn't need free will either, because you could just act out the dictates of this internal representation

that isn't what you do

so anyways, the proposition here is that the conscience exists, but it's a relatively flawed entity

it needs to be modified as well by nature

which is quite interesting, 'cause the blue fairy knights him, 'cause you also might think of the conscience as only something that's socially constructed

right, which is the more typical viewpoint, but I don't buy that for a second

because I believe firmly, and I believe the Piagetian interpretation of child development

more or less bears this out, is that there are parameters within which conscience has to operate

and it's sort of like this, it's like, it's the same parameters that govern fair play, we'll say that

and so you can say there's fair play within a game, and there's fair play across sets of games

and the set of games is pretty much indistinguishable from the actual environment

if you think all the things you do as nested games, at some point the spread of that is large enough so that it encompasses everything you do

which includes the environment, and so I believe that you're adapted to the set of all possible games, roughly speaking

all possible playable games, something like that

and that you know the rules for that, which is why, we talked about this a little bit, why you're so good at identifying cheaters

we have a module for that, according to the evolutionary psychologists

and not only you identify them, but you remember them, it really sticks in your mind

and there's other evidence, too, one piece of evidence that I love, well, there's a couple

one I would derive from Frans de Waal, who's a famous primatologis, and he studied the prototype morality that emerges in chimpanzees

and it's very much nested in their dominance structures

you know, because you could think of morality in some sense as the understanding of the rules by which the dominance hierarchy operates, right

and so you could say, well, the biggest, ugliest, meanest chimp...

and the male dominance hierarchies in chimps seem to be the predominant ones, although the females also have a dominance hierarchy

it's not quite so clear in bonobos, which seem to be more female-dominated

but in any case, the primary chimp dominance structure is male

and you could think, well it's like the caveman chimp who's biggest and toughest who necessarily rules, and who rules longest

but that isn't what de Waal found; see, the problem with being... mean, lets say

and not negotiating your social landscape, and not trading reciprocal favors

is that no matter how powerful you are as an individual, two individuals three quarters your power could do you in

and that happens with the chimps fairly regularly; if the guy on top is too tyrannical

and doesn't make social connections, then weaker chimps, males, make good social connections

and when he's not in such good shape, they take him down, and viciously too

de Waal has documented some unbelievably horrendous acts of, let's call it, regicide

among the chimpanzee troupes that he studied, mostly in the Arnhem zoo

the big troupe there, that's been there a long time

but he's very interested in prototypical morality, and here's some other examples of prototypical morality

emerging among animals, there's many of them, but one is

you know, if two wolves have a dominance dispute, again that would be more likely among the male wolves

but it doesn't really matter, they basically display their size, and they growl ferociously

and they puff up their hair so they look bigger, and you can see cats do that when they go into fight or flight

not only do they puff up, including their tail, but they stand sideways

and the reason they do that is because they look bigger

right, 'cause they're trying to put up the most intimidating possible front

so anyways, if two wolves are going at it, what they're really trying to do is to size each other up

and they're trying to scare each other into backing off, fundamentally

because, see, the worst-case scenario is like, you're wolf number one, and I'm wolf number two

and we tear each other to shreds, but I win, but I'm so damaged after that wolf number three comes in and takes me out

so, like, there's a big cost to be paid even for victory in a dominance dispute, if it degenerates into violence

and animals, and human beings, but animals in particular, have evolved very, very specific mechanisms

to escalate dominance disputes towards violence step by step

so that they don't... so that the victor doesn't risk incapacitating himself by winning

so what happens with the wolves is that, you know, they growl at each other and posture display, and maybe they even snap at each other

but the probability that they're gonna get into a full-fledged fight is pretty low

and what happens is, one of the wolves backs off, and flips over and shows his neck

and that basically means: "all right, tear it out," and the other wolf says:

though of course he doesn't, "well, you're kind of an idiot, and you're not that strong, but we might need you to take down a moose in the future

and, you know, despite your patheticness, I won't tear out your throat"

and then they've established their dominance position, and then, from then on, at least for some substantial period of time

the subordinate wolf gives way to the dominant wolf

but at least the subordinate wolf is alive, and, you know, he might be dominant over other wolves

and so, everyone in the whole hierarchy has sorted that out either through mock combat or through combat itself

and, you know, the low-ranking members aren't in the best possible position, but at least they're not getting their heads torn off every second of their existence

so there's even some utility in the stability of the dominance hierarchy for the low-ranking members

'cause at least they're not getting pounded, getting threatened, which is way better

I mean it's not good, but it's way better than actual combat

and then there's the example of rats, which I love, this is Jaak Panksepp's work

and he wrote a book called affective neuroscience, which I highly, highly recommend

I have a list of readings, recommended readings on my website

it's a brilliant book, and he's a brilliant psychologist, really, one of the top psychologists as far as I'm concerned

both theoretically and experimentally, a real genius, he's the guy who discovered that rats laugh when you tickle them

they laugh ultrasonically, so you can't actually hear them, but if you record it and slow it down

then you can hear them giggling away when you tickle them with an erase, which is sort of like their mother's tongue

it's often what lab people use as a substitute for the licking of the little rat by the mother

so, and he discovered the paly circuit in mammals, which is like a major deal, right

he should get a Nobel prize for that, that's a big deal to discover an entire motivational circuit

whose existence no one had really predicted, you know, apart from the fact that obviously mammals play

and even lizards maybe, some of them are social lizards, seem to play

so, anyhow, what Panksepp observed, and I think this is a brilliant piece of science

is that, first of all, juvenile male rats in particular like to rough and tubmle play

like to wrestle, and they actually pin each other like little kids do, or like adult wrestlers do

they pin their shoulders down, and that basically means you win, and so, OK, so that's pretty cool

but what's even cooler, I think, well there's three things, one is:

the rats will work for an opportunity to get into an arena where they know that play might occur

and so that's one of the scientific ways of testing an animal's motivation, right

so imagine you have a starving rat and it knows that it's got food down in the end of a corridoor

you can put a little spring on its tail and measure how hard it pulls, and that gives you and idication of its motivational force

now, imagine the starving rat that's trying to get to some food, and you have a little spring on its tail, and you waft in some cat odor

so now that rat is starving and wants to get out of there, he's going to pull even farther towards the food

so getting away plus getting forward are separate motivational systems, and if you can add them together it's real potent

and part of the reason why in the future authoring exercise that you guys are gonna do as the class progresses

you're asked to outline the place you'd like to end up, which is your desired future

and also the place that you could end up if you let everything fall apart

so that your anxiety chases you and your approach systems pull you forward

you're maximally motivated then, and it's important, because otherwise you can be afraid of pursuing the things you wanna pursue

right, and that's very common, and so then the fear inhibits you as the promise pulls you forward

but it makes you weak, because you're afraid; you wanna get your fear behind you, pushing you

and so what you wanna be is more afraid of not pursuing your goals than you are of pursuing them

it's very, very helpful; and lots of times in life, and this is something really worth knowing

you know, and this is one of the advantages to being an autonomous adult

you don't get to pick the best thing, you get to pick your poison

you have two bad choices, and you get to pick which one you're willing to suffer through

and every choice has a bit of that element in it, and so, if you know that it's really freeing

because otherwise you torture yourself by thinking: "well, maybe there's a good solution to this, compared to the bad solution"

it's like, no, no, sometime's there's just risky solution 1, and risky solution 2

and sometimes both of them are really bad, but you at least get to pick which one you're willing to suffer through

and that's... that actually makes quite a bit of difference, because you're also facing it voluntarily then

instead of it chasing you, and that is an entirely different psychophysiological response

challenge vs threat, it's not the same, even if the magnitude of the problem is the same

and so putting yourself in a challenging, let's call it, mindframe, you can't just do that by magic

putting yourself in a challenging mindframe is much easier on you psychophysiologically

'cause you don't produce... you don't go into the generalized stress response to the same degree

and you're activating your exploratory and seeking systems, which are dopaminergically mediated, and that involve positive emotion

so if you can face something voluntarily, rather than having it chase you, it's way better for you psychophysiologically

so, that's partly why, well, it's worthwhile to go find the dragon in its lair instead of waiting for it to come and eat you

so, and especially if you also add the idea that if you go find the dragon in its lair

you might find it when it's a baby, instead of a full-fledged bloody monster that is definitely gonna take you down

and so that's part of the reason why... well there's a whole bunch of things that emerge out of that observation

like: don't avoid small problems that you know are there