I'm javelin Rod Hi Robert Krulwich This is Radio Lab today a series of stories of people being trying and often failing to read the mind of another in a getting started going to go back to the beginning where the Who are you question is super mysterious to me this begins with well a precious event right jab jab produced and the 1st question that he is his 1st baby and so he actually had a college where you say that his 1st period he had said so dismissive Yeah but like all parents neuro you know what he was the talk about I want to talk about my kid. Is named the meal this is him right here and by the way I do plan to make this interesting to people who don't have kids because I was just one of those people 2 months ago so bear with me but Ok a meal he's 2 months old he in the munchkin phase. And he's just starting to tune in the world. So there are these moments like yesterday for example where he gets really. It's it's kind of these. Kind of presents an interesting question which I want to explore right here in fact you can afford and you're staring at this thing you're like. What is this little creature experiencing like here is a little human being that is brand new in the world what does the world look like to a tiny baby what does it smell like what does it sound like. And I have to find somebody who could help me. Begin answer these questions. Hello hijabs Hi is this Charles Yes that's right what did you get to talk to before we get started can I just have unities yourself so I can get your name right Ok hi my name is Charles Fernyhough I'm a writer and developmental psychologist from Durham University and that when Charles had his 1st child Athena he decided to tackle the question of what is it like what's going on for this little person as a dad you know as a as an all structure new diet but also as a scientist so he wrote a book called a 1000 days of one scientist's chronicle of his daughter's developing mind amazing book where he basically goes through what we do and don't know about what's happening in the minds of little babies when they're brand new so I put the scenario to him Ok meals brand new. When I'm sitting there holding him and we're staring at each other and what exactly is he seeing one difference that does relate to their visual system is that. The lens of their eye is absolutely crystal clear whereas your lens my lens because they're a certain age they've become slightly yellowed so they filter out some of the blue frequencies of the light that we see so paint the picture out what would that be like for them I mean this is my my stab at imagining what this would be like but if you can imagine being in a Greek village in the summer. Sun is directly overhead and it's one of those villages where everything is why you know the houses are all painted white. You're wearing sunglasses. And you suddenly take off by some girls. It's not bright Yeah I think light is a big that's probably the biggest shock to new born babies it's interesting to consider that blinding haze of whiteness might actually be how the world really is we just don't see it but then i would you know you don't you do have to get mentioned sound because I would imagine that what's true about the eyes may be also true but you know why I asked I asked Charles like Do babies here things differently than the rest of us and he said yeah we think so we think they are echoes the Act There are actually there. But our brains filter them out but it takes some time for them to learn to do that. I mean the science behind it is quite complicated and I could explain it but. It's to do with the relative times of a rival the that the sound makes some of the 2 areas of the brain basically has to has to learn to make this is just me Cantor straightaway and this is a newborn babies hearing we get so we don't know for sure again because we can't know what it's like but we guess that babies hear things in a very accurate way so it's just it's so. But it gets even stranger tell me about the the experiment the babies in the brain kept you know I described a study that was done with babies where they were taking the measurements and these are the kind of measurements that you get when you put a net of 16 or so electrodes over the scalp and these electrodes pick up the very small electrical changes that go on as your brain works. And it's a perfectly safe home this procedure which you can do with very young babies Well usually when you do these studies you can see the way I see the way in which particular parts of the brain respond to different kinds of stimulus in an adult brain he says if you show someone a picture you will see a little bit of electricity towards the back of their brain if only other hand you heard a sound then the bit of your brain sort of slightly further forward from that the older trickle tracks would far and you wouldn't see any in the visual cortex because different parts of the brain have different jobs but what happens in these babies is that things got very strange like the researchers would show them a bunch of pictures like here's a circle Here's a cross and often things would work as they're supposed to they would see like a little spark in the back of the baby's brain where vision is process sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes when they showed them what to say across the vision part would be silent. But they'd see a spark in the water tickle ticks the hearing part of the brain so the picture would trigger a sound in their head we don't know what it triggered in their head for them subjectively but we during our Either the top of the brain. Did far they were what you're saying but not quite allowed to pass through your lips they were hearing the picture but we don't we don't know what they had. Good basis for saying that when a new born brain is developing. These different wiring information into different parts of the brain still taking shape it might be he says it inside the meals brain right now at 2 months. All of his senses are in a big synesthetic not so that when he hears my voice maybe he sees flashes of color RINGBACK. Maybe when he looks at the wall he hears tones or maybe when light comes in through the window he tastes like salt or something and. That's the thing we call an I mean there's really strong philosophical grounds for being skeptical I'm not sure I can know that anybody is conscious. When it's I mean I can't measure your conscious. But I but I'm talking to you sure but you know you could be a really small zombie you could be right well you know I can't see your 5000 miles away I mean it may be that I'm the only person in the universe or is conscious. We tend to the vast majority of us tend to say well he looks like me to me anything slimy and he perceives I may say he's going to be dark me but it is a leap of faith. I guess. And then I told him about the stair the one thing that I started this how you know just in the last little bit and we'll start to really stare at us and we stare back and it's. That's not a leap of faith that's for real and he. Told me something really depressing in those 1st couple of months the visual system is controlled by the subcortical regions and they're kind of the old parts of the brain the cortex is the relatively new evolution only speaking the relatively new part of the brain surrounds the whole thing and there's a switch between one kind of control system the subcortical system and the cortical systems but as the handover happens and this is happening at about 2 months it's probably be interesting to know if he's doing this now as the handover happens there's a kind of struggle for power and the subcortical regions which are controlling vision kind of immediately want to cede power to the court courageous so the baby loses control temporarily loses control of where he or she is looking because of the struggle for power started school is sticky fixation and it's where a baby will just keep staring year it's as if the baby can't take its eyes of yes this is what's happening now you're telling me this is the brain let's just quite a well documented phenomenon and it's bad news for the parents who think that babies again gazing casing at the door are actually they're just kind of they don't know where to look they can't control whether looking they don't know how to look away are pressing. This might actually be one of those cases where ignorance really is place because the truth is you have to project you have to make that leap of faith or at least you have to believe whatever it is you have to believe that when he looks back at him. Because actually that. How the world works. Humans operate on relationships which are on the back which Ok moment in time for him real. They will be. Charles funny how is the author amazing 1000 days of one. Father's prayer room or. Do you believe that he eventually will know you and his mom sister if there's going to be one a brother and his cousins and then the world and then his friends and then there's been there will be a yeah it's like a horrible employer it's an onion of leaps of faith that you have to kind of that doesn't make any sense at all but you know what I'm saying it's like one leap of faith on another on another on another until you die but there is not to worry you this is a very rare circumstance we're about to introduce but there are people who make the necessary connections growing up and learning to deal love and behave well with the rest of the world and then something that happens this very ordinary and important and necessary ability just turns off yeah and with that we're going to meet a few folks could you introduce yourself. At the University of California San Diego I do the Center for Brain and cognition Ok My name is Dr Carole Berman I'm at n.y.u. Medical Center I'm a psychiatrist also in private practice they're going to tell you 2 different stories but really it's the same story just 2 different versions of it in a way that's right that's right and we're going to start with Carol so my patient who is this 37 year old patient comes back to her house and sits next to this man who's wearing a red plaid shirt and trucking boots the I think the jeans she recognized and the boots and she takes a look at them and says Who are you and he says to her well who are you coming. Here give me a kiss so she leans in nervously gives him a kiss she gave him a kiss but it feels wrong I mean everything about the situation to her feels wrong she was thinking this is some strange man who's sitting here in you know her husband's clothing this did not look like her husband to her and she was wondering what he was doing in her apartment Oh Ok So that is one story and now we want you to hear a 2nd story slightly different but well you'll see this one comes from Dr v.s. Ramachandran I saw a patient not long ago was in coma 2 weeks came out of the coma a student on our campus intelligent quite articulate a little bit slowed but overall quite intact but here's the problem when he looks at his mother says Dr Who's this woman this woman looks exactly like my mother but she's an impostor him Pastor she is an impostor she some other woman pretending to be my mother now is this person coming to them his actual name is his mother and of course this is very alarming to the parents sometimes just goes over to the Father . Somebody very close to you. Nothing else wrong with them just doesn't think that his mother is really his mother this person looked like her husband but there was something off like what there was something about him some essence like the feeling you have toward someone when you see them right the feeling or the essence of the person the soul of the person isn't in there these 2 patients turns out are both suffering from the same rare delusional disorder which is called compress pronounce a cop draws a broad illusion Kopra for a a p s comp growth Ok named after function or psychiatrist almost a 100 years ago story is in 1923 a French woman was taken in for treatment she came in to her doctor totally convinced that her husband had been replaced her kids had been replaced her clothes had been replaced even her house had all been replaced with impostors and that doctor who 1st described this terrifying condition was named Joseph Kopp grassed still today no one is quite sure why this delusion happens so I ask Carol Berman how she might explain this delusion we explain it psychologically there might be some negative aspects of the person that you don't want to recognize like maybe my patient you know saw some negative things in a husband that you don't want to recognize So when the negative aspects Kamen he had to be a completely different person for her to because she couldn't so you know what I mean on some level you're not you think it might be because she's not ignorant was not acknowledging certain facets of her husband right I think what she's saying Robert is that like you're a complicated person and there are thoughts about you that I like and their parts about you I don't like like when you yell at me for example. But I intimated that you really mean to you know scream or hear but in the point I take all of these different facets of you and I integrate them into the whole of Robert Krulwich there but what she's saying is that it like what if there is some intense aspect of denial where I couldn't hear you could not only to the negative parts so the only way that I could deal with that was to say oh well this person is being is yelling at me so that's not the Robert I know so the only way to do it is to graft or it isn't Robert at all therefore it isn't Robert rod that's right but this is a psychotic excuse I'm very far out to go all the way over there and to think well these clothes are being replaced or my husband's been replaced that is a huge leap out of reality into psychosis if you think that there might be some psychological explanation for this when you try to address that central like a logical thing we do but we don't get too far we tried to stop but when a person starts breaking from reality and become psychotic You can't just talk him out of it you could take fingerprints you could show him everything about the person and you can't get any place Ok so that's the psychiatrists explanation for this condition now here is how the neuroscientist explains I think what's happening is something quite specific you can explain this in terms of the norm circuitry in the brain the visual centers of the brain funneling information to the fusiform times where you recognize your mother a dog or a table or the chair is a stranger is a job that my mom is a dog's at 50 then the message goes to the middle of which gauges the emotional significance emotional relevance of what you're looking at for you so it's also took to make that into normal English mom is a face I recognize as mom and a set of feelings that I associate with my correct. Now what happens as in this patient because of the head injury that wire is cut so then no mommy feeling no mommy feeling so you say my my got a visit my mom she looks at remember where I am who I knew feelings there's something really weird here she must be an imposter Now that's a very far fetched illusion why doesn't she just say she doesn't feel like mom of but of course she's my mom you know what I think you know to be sure sometimes that happens but most often it is not my mom because our thought processes are much more dependent on a gut level emotional feelings than we realize So absent a feeling a familiar feeling of mom some part of my brain says that's your mother and some part of it has no it can't be and the deal that the brain works out is a deal that creates this fiction because it's an impostor Yes That solves the problem and the equation that says it can't be use from your emotions wins but now here's the twist now if she goes to the next room speaks to Mother phone he says bomb where are you how are you it's wonderful to talk to you all emotions come flooding back and he. Is not delusional right now why would that be an auditor she comes to the room he's Were you look just like my mother but you're not a mother so seeing the Face him to set off this problem the reason is there's a separate wire going from the order to regions of the brain to the mental or emotional centers that wire was not cut so what you hear. Can be very familiar but if you see it then you've got a problem and people ask me How come what if you just keep what if she comes and talks down what you know what is in the hearing kick in and say Look here's your mother there's a hierarchy of of priorities very highly visual creatures we pay much more attention to Vision give much more weight to vision than to hearing and voice so you say this is an imposter but she sounds a little bit like my mother I don't know why but she's obviously an imposter rather than she doesn't look like my mother but has my mother's voice so I mean can their delusions start to creep into you know other relationship they do and a couple of a mis identified may they gave me some funny looks like this page and give me a really funny look like like you're in a positive thought I was an imposter to in that case what do you do well that's a problem. Trust me anymore because I'm really not the person to thought I was I'm somebody else I'm a duplicate and I understand and tell me for not comfortable talking about this I understand that you have personal experience with this disorder are actually my husband and he started not recognizing other people 1st and then at some points he didn't even think I was his wife. I'm very stressed out with this whole situation because my husband was charming intelligent wonderful person and always and his dimensions been getting worse and worse yeah. You're a psychiatrist so does does your understanding of how that might work in the brain change. The how that I'm well various know it can really change your feeling because you know when I get home and I'd like to I get home I kiss my husband say hi how are you today and I hope he's recognizing me and if he doesn't you know I feel terrible after a hard day's work I want to be able to hug him and because i'm And you know have a nice friendly environment when I get back but you never know what you're going to get when you get back home. Care of Armin is the author of a recent book called personality disorders and v.s. Ramachandran is the author also of a new book The Man with the phantom twin inventors in the neuroscience of the human brain. For we go to break just want to remind you that we have a website a Radio Lab dot org You can go there and hear anything you hear in this hour again you can also subscribe to our podcast that's Radiolab dot org. Radio you're right back after these telephonically funded in the phone message. 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I'm Robert Krulwich This is Radio Lab Our topic today is are you is what Yeah we're asking it is in a fundamental way as we can Who are you you might call it knowing the other pretty good very nice very nice bit of the dollar and all things and through Paul logical or something or let's make it less anthropological who are going to throw away the answer apart Yes So instead of asking it of another person which we did in the previous section let's ask it just to make things more interesting let's ask it of the individual from another species yes that's where this whole knowing and other beings mind question gets way trickier especially with primates this next story comes from a reporter Ben Calhoun. Grew out of a conversation he had with well just listen Ok you just started to anyone all right thank you very much are you ready to go are you yeah absolutely Jerry you're ready yes or whenever your let's just start with having you introduce yourself Jerry stone the facilities director at the gladdest borders who that's where Jerry is now but he told me this story he was working at the Henry during the zoo in Nebraska and he was working with the Serrano 10 named Manchu I call him food that everybody loved that well boy referred to he was food or food with me to set the scene so we're in the brassicas or we're in Nebraska is this in Omaha Oh you know in the Omaha Zoo It's fall 1967 the late 66 or 67 kind of cold the leaves have fallen off the trees Gerri stone is just going about his daily business what is his daily business and being in charge of the zookeepers So he's kind of the top dog among the crew of zookeepers there and he's up at the office and they're all sudden here comes a couple of the keepers running up over this hill is Jerry Jerry Jerry that the record dancer in the trees by the elephant building. Went dead for a minute I couldn't figure out what the. They were talking about and I swear and they said their ranks are in the trees by the elephant so the Rangar things are no longer in their assigned area yes so I took off with them we ran down there and sure enough there was this group of elm trees on this hill overlooking the elephant billionaire up on the top of these trees were all during a tanned Oh God yeah and there was a few Manchu any female on the label and all female names Sylvia big heavy set girl and told young female adenosine young male they were all up in the trees 5 of them I have them up there you know look like these huge red. Clumps of greats. At this point there is a young guy so he went Tarzan on about in those days I didn't think anything about going to top of the tree and grabbing their brain by the hand and leaning back out of the tree even though I had a couple of minority but me so he gets them all back in the exhibit and they didn't know how the rang of hands had got now no question and everybody and not listening have a chance to do that you know Anyway I get them down to below we put them away in the cage and and we go out to see what was going on in the exhibit itself there's most on each side of this exhibit you know like a zoom out you've got the exhibit and then you've got where people look from and in between there's a moat right well down at the bottom of this moat there was a door. To a furnace through a big metal door that had just the regular lock and everything on it it was always shut kept locked all the time that door was open what had happened there range had climbed on a moat. Went into the furnace room which was in the basement up a ladder janitor's closet on the 1st floor 12345 they all emerge from this janitor's closet and then the big glass doors open went out into the. I figured somebody had not locked the door shut so Jerry Stone's gathers his you keep His around and he says basically we need to be more careful somebody evidently went on in that mode to do something and when they came back in they did not lock the door . A mistake and it should not happen again. Ever want it but he vowed that this would not happen again and it didn't then never again for about a week. A few days go by. And again the rank has a deer in the trees by the elephant building and Jerry we the door was locked away we didn't do it we didn't get on and so they take them all back into the building same thing I get there go down and that furnace room door is open. Again. I was convinced that these people were not sharp enough to shock tie their shoes you know in an hour and they said Jerry we don't go down there well somebody screwed up so I'm discussing with these givers what's going to happen to them and their short lives and I sort of guy said the next time this happens somebody is being fired. A few days later. Somebody runs up to him Jerry come you got to come see this out oh no not now they ran out into the zoo and they went to this hill that's near the exhibit peeked over the top of it commando style down at the bottom of the moat. Was messing with that furnace room door what was he doing they couldn't exactly see what he was doing because of how far away they were but he was fiddling with the lock and he's filling a nice feeling and then all the sudden bam just fucked up and then we went bowling down the hill and we caught him before he could do any damage you mean the a wrangler can't seem to be opening the door yes you know I have realized now it wasn't their fault and you know it the crow that I had each and we still didn't know exactly how he did it and we went out there and we looked around and there was futile sticks and stuff laying around without well he must be using this stuff to pry the door open or do something else so Jerry figured easy solution clean the exhibit every day as it look from now on we need to go out in this yard every day before we put the rings out and search that plays over and again you know make sure there's no sticks or anything out there because. I did it but he did it you know we knew what the problem was and we know how to deal with it. Like that for. Here. In the trees. We did everything we. Under German they did. They had been searching this exhibit every day. That exhibit weekly and. The pride of. How can this be how can this be how can this be so he's ushering Fu Manchu through the building they've got all the hands are moving him and all of a sudden he sees in the corner of. This little blink just a little glimmer of light like a silver filling or something shiny thing it's corner of his mouth he walks over pulls down. There was a piece of wire. That he had been. In. And around his gum and he's had it there for so long that it was shiny suggesting this animal has been secretly in his actual key all this time yeah all the stuff that we're picking up and hauling away keep him from the door was of no use because he was carrying his own. What he had done was stick the wire into the space between the door jamb and the door wrap it around the latch and pull it back the credit card trick you know. Nobody taught him. Ever did anything like that around here. But he put it in a place where. Union . Gave him a membership in the zoo and had that hanging on their wall for years I don't know if they still haven't enough. Well this isn't very interesting is that really great story and very nice but I don't quite intelligent What exactly was why you telling it to me what is the reason for this well you know there's a lot of stories of earning a TENs using tools right now but even though this is a funny story there's actually a really serious question at the heart of it about deception one not so important about well deception is special it requires that the deceiver get into the mind of the person who they're deceiving in nobody has been able to prove that animals can actually do this no a human being's thoughts intimately enough get inside their heads and you know consciously deceive them so. RINGBACK I took the few Manchu story RINGBACK RINGBACK. Scientists a primatologist named Rob shoemaker Liberace maker Hey Rob it's been a Macand he's at the Great Ape Trust you know and I studied the behavior and cognition of haranguing hands and he says the food meant you story doesn't prove that animals are capable of doing well it is in this particular case I can't prove it one way or another there's always a question of whether or not it was really happening but when I really pushed I'm just wondering like personally do you believe in his case that it was he said you know if if I had to just give an opinion about this that deep down I have no doubt at all I 100 percent believe it was deception keeping it to all concealed over a whole number of days and tightening his escape so that no one was around to see him I think the evidence is just as. So maybe compelling to suggest that human she was able to deceive and was deceiving and if someone really has that much trouble believing it I think then maybe they are Christian is it because I don't believe what I'm hearing or I don't want to believe it because it's been around you know if they don't want to believe it because it's entering it cannot. It was like. I just I couldn't figure out I mean when you think you're so smart that all the other animals are way below you and also when you find this animal that does the sort of things and you know people that could know from the dog or the key right there you you know you have to be and. I've been around a lot of other around you chance in my almost 45 years in this business and. Next thing you got a zoo and you're around one you just look at their face and you look at their eyes and you can see and then there's just these wheels turning. Trying to figure out. Thanks to reporter Ben Calhoun. Ok to keep things moving you could say that the last I heard. You know that that was sort of a formal relationship because you had around you and as you keeper and they were separated by Barzilla But how about this for this next segment let's remove the bars collapse the space and make it done more of a family thing he has more intimate so this time the human will be our producer Lulu Miller and this is a tale which leaves Lulu fundraising something happened to her dog and the question for her is. Can she ever know what happened in her dog's mind and more important in this case but she want to know. On most of his birthdays Maureen would give Charlie a sweater Maureen was my dad's coworker Charlie was my dog he was a little white terrier a very active little guy always snuffling around at something barking graveling if you took his spot on the couch but when we depend into that your sweater he go completely still every time almost like it was an instinct you get that same stillness when my sisters and I would sit in a circle around him coloring on his white fur with magic markers I used to think he was still like that because he was happy content to be our little dog but now. I know wildness glimmered up in him though from time to time we'd be sitting in the living room Charlie and I all quiet late afternoon I'd be reading a calculus book or staring at it kind of and he'd be gazing out the window fixed when suddenly without warning he tear off to the front hallway barking and literally slam his body against the door not even bothering to scratch and this urgency was so refreshing so reassuring that I'd let him out and into the street he'd fly into our neighbor's yard chasing after a squirrel he'd make it to the base of a far off tree in 5 seconds flat though he never caught a squirrel or a chipmunk or anything not once in those moments though you could see the wolf inside him springing to life this ghost of what he once was just that it was generations out of practice and this wildness would get Mr Ector that non wild things to he chase after vacuum cleaners growl at bongo drums and suspiciously I the dishwasher. He was part of our family though and if I make him sound gravelly and awful he wasn't he was quiet mostly stoic a good listener my dad's only friend through long stretches my dad the guy prone to the newest Aldec and scoops of sadness and I'd stumble in on him on early mornings in tender conversation with Charlie testing ideas out on him What do you think big guy he'd say What do you think I imagined he was very lonely Charlie that is lost in a purgatory where he didn't belong Ok Congratulations you've made it this far in someone else's pet story I promise things are about to change because it shortly after his 13th birthday Maureen I think got him a little blue jean jacket with a sheepskin inside and Levi buttons that Charlie got eaten by a pack of wild coyotes let me back up just a step or 2 this all happened on keep Cod The easternmost tail of Massachusetts where you can find beachgoers in the summer Kennedys I think you know where to look and very few predators a couple Hawks the occasional Fox but other than that as the local fauna goes it's pretty much snow white Land chipmunks bunnies skunks. Until the coyotes came I was about 15 when we 1st started hearing about them and for us east coasters that made no sense coyote's were symbols of the West somewhere far far away from Massachusetts somewhere where the land was orange and wide and open at that point the only coyotes I've ever seen were the ones on ladies' vests in the stores My mom liked so I looked into it and it turns out that for a long time it was that way Cody's like big states and cheerful personalities was a strictly western thing. But in the 1920 s. People started spotting coyotes in New York and by the late fifty's they'd made it up to Massachusetts only they couldn't quite get out to Cape Cod sea Cape Cod is literally cut off from the rest of Massachusetts by a canal that's almost 2 football fields wide so for decades the Kylie's were kept on the mainland until one night sometime in the late seventy's according to naturalists a pack of coyotes decided to do with the rest of us do they gathered up their kids together for a road trip and cross the bridge or possibly some speculate swam across the canal but I think it's a far better image to picture than the silhouette walking in single file across the bridge with a big white moon behind them. So suddenly they were there and they started multiplying more and more sightings of them in backyards and on runners routes the local press started running articles keep your pets in after dark a cave was found local lore has it with hundreds of collars in 1908 a 3 year old boy was bitten and then my sister found a goose completely slaughtered down on a dock by the pond it was surrounded by a splatter painting of feces strewn so wide she deemed it that of terror now it turns out my family came to Cape Cod right around the same time as the coyote in the late seventy's my parents bought a cabin in the woods that overlooked a purple Marsh the cabin had a deck and that's where we spent most of our time we'd sit out there late into the night watching birds and stars and that's where Charlie was the happiest on the deck he'd pace around occasionally nail scraping the wood but mostly he just flop down with a sigh a literal human side and gaze out along with us we never needed a fence because he simply never left. In the coyote's for showed up he used to like hearing them you could hear it as you lay awake in bed the howl sometimes far off sometimes right up close and it felt thrilling to know that things were happening life cycles and grizzly nature predators prey right outside the walls that used to make me feel like part of the earth so here's how it happened from my perspective it's late August sun is setting we pull into the driveway but we don't see Charlie on the deck immediately I knew something was wrong my dad said no way everything's fine but then we heard a whimper in the woods my mom and sisters and I jumped into action we called for him showing flashlights Charlie but the Woods had gone quiet. And I remember this part very clearly we were all standing out on the deck craning our necks listening for something and just as my dad was forming the words Well look there's nothing to worry about he'll turn up in the morning we heard the Yelp So Charlie that same noise he'd make when he stepped on his tail followed immediately by the howls I ran into a closet to hide from the sound the next morning there was nothing not a shred not a collar not a bone not a piece of hair they say one way the Coyotes do it especially with other dogs is that a lone coyote comes up to the dog and starts playing with it eventually they go off together and after just a few paces the pack descends or a slight variation a coyote pretends to be hurt it whimpers and cries and calls out for help I can only imagine Charlie in that moment there he is standing face to face with his past self at long last one of his own has come over to him I imagine his head looked up a bit his chest swelled his ears perked up and he stepped off the deck. It's right around then that we would have come home he would have heard us roll into the driveway seen our flashlights heard our calls and for once ignored us he was off to help his brother I wonder how fast it happened I wonder if he even knew I imagine he did I imagine he saw the eyes suddenly all at once realizing he was surrounded and thought I've been had well played my brothers well played and I like to imagine a knot of respect on their part before they descended the morning after it happened we were empty my dad couldn't look up he kept rearranging chairs around the kitchen table as if some new arrangement would have secure the empty spot on the floor and for so long that's how we experienced it it was about us the family member we lacked and then one day years later it dawned on my sister that for all the sadness we felt that last moment for Charlie was probably glory. For that one moment he was wild he went out like a wild dog we were all standing out on the deck when she said it my Mom smiled and said Yeah that's a nice thought but then she turned to us you know who's to say they got him who's to say he didn't often join the pack. Producer Lou Miller. And we'll be right back. Wait before we get we. Sure to check out a Radio Lab. As well as c.n.n. Ridiculous like you picture Charlie Charlie the way. Radio. This isn't enough and loud calling from Norwich for a month maybe a lab is supported by transfer was a new way to manage money across borders over 6000000 people and businesses use their wise to send send and receive money internationally more a transfer why dot com slash media lab or on the app. Support for k.q.e.d. Comes from the San Francisco Symphony celebrate the holidays with the San Francisco Symphony from beloved films including Love Actually with live orchestra to New Year's Eve with Seth MacFarlane learn more at s.f. Symphony dot org slash holiday Eric and Wendy Schmidt whose fund for strategic innovation supports transformative ideas that benefit humanity while protecting the natural world recognizing through science the interdependence of all living systems . It's I'm Stephen Dubner on the next Freakonomics Radio we look at the gender disparity in Hollywood films you know Hollywood is leaving money on the table and what one movie star is doing about it I've been there hundreds of times to talk to every possible division they have but next time I'm for going on with radio. Freakonomics Radio coming up next it starts at 3 hours and possibly a thunderstorm continuing on into the evening with overnight lows in the Bay Area in the fifty's and winds 8 to 13 miles per hour with some gusts up to 20 around the bay shore line and tomorrow more showers and it looks like maybe even a thunderstorm overnight this is k.q.e.d. Public Radio. Hey I'm Jad Abumrad I'm Robert Krulwich This is Radio Lab Our topic is today is the very simple question very fundamental question Who are you who are you like Who are you really and what do you know and what you know can I get inside that had probably not so this is the this is the ultimate get inside that head question all of us know that one time or another you know that we're going to die and one of the big questions for everyone news you know what happens then nothing something yeah like when you get right up to it what's out there well there's a hunch that people who are right on the edge me know a little more than those of us who are still deeply and richly in our lives that maybe at the threshold they'd be something that you could tell something you could say. For example. There is a moment in Shakespeare it is a very very famous moment when Shakespeare allows his actors to step right up to the edge of death almost into death itself it's from Hamlet Yeah that sounds Ok so who will start so what's going on in the play at the very end Well the very end there is a pile of bodies. This is Ron Rosenbaum He's the author of a book called The Shakespeare Wars Hamlet and Laird he's have fought a dual. Hand query has drawn a draft of. People are dying all over the place and Hamlet to he's been caught in fatally poisoned he falls into the arms of his of his very best friend Horatio are dying ratio this is for moments of movie The potent poison quite All crows much. And then finally he says rushed. And Hamlet dies. So that's the end of Hamlet The rest is silence those are his last words which may be Shakespeare's way of just saying so that you know when you die that's what happens in this just nothing is just silence. However. 7 years after Shakespeare's death his collaborators reprinted collected works of Shakespeare This is called the folio version in that version says Ron after the rest is silence Hamlet is not silent what is printed beneath the rest is silence is literally capital 0. 0. 004-0400. 0 your fair weather friend with Mark Riley earlier I found that the public radio and we wondered what part are these as they just tack like dangling donuts on one of the most lyrical deaths in the English language so what are we doing here well most of the actors who perform Hamlet pay no attention to the people they don't do the show as they do the rest the Cylons they die and it's done. Down there but we met a guy who does do the groundwork eat I'm on fire and Robert Krulwich turns out a little rat I guess his name is Mark Riley So we go from Iowa that's new Yeah met him backstage at the Longacre Theater in New York City he was starring in a in an I'm Shakespeare about. Passion took us up to an hour in the playground. Cleaning the dressing room and it was there he began to talk about the groans of the oh oh oh oh was added by very careful editors to the folio in 1623 marks that he didn't think that Shakespeare actually wrote those of those things probably an actor did so when you when you direct just sat there and you looking at these for those on the page why didn't you think yourself shut up because I guess. I guess I've done it 300 times setting up so I was introduced into the change into the difference particularly when he began to just consider the. Character of Hamlet himself of all the characters who died in plays I think when most intrigued about what will make of it because Rudd says Remember not only is Hamlet you know unusually obsessed by death he went to a school that champion reason over a mystery is a student at Wittenberg University he's part of the whole Protestant movement the accurate study of nature he's moving away from superstition and. He encounters it calls. A ghost that not only appears as a father that's like his father. Says this is the scientists I imagine it's an entire program you have to put yourself in that position it's one of you it's not a new age wanderer or some regular visitor to a psychic who has this experience so his his gaze has been for the whole play his gaze as been on what what is on the other side of our consciousness and when in the end Hamlet finally steps to be of the answer and he utters the rest in silence. Here's the choice that actors and directors when they do Hamlet must make how much next step is either to silence where there is nothing where there's a nothingness forever and ever or is there is something we hear on the other side and does he see that something in a vision maybe for vision oh oh oh oh oh they could represent a kind of dying area oh alongside I see it coming oh my god it's here oh it's about to happen. That's it this is this is an idea you had to inhabit night after night I did yeah what did you do you were doing I felt that I felt I was in counseling. I felt I was in can encounter in countering. Another reality then was immediately apparent to those around me. And so I felt with Hamlet that he moved and was seeing things. As it was in conference things but his ability to put words to what he's witnessing dies before his ability to witness the ability to say what he saw that died even though he still had mind enough to see so some nights Mark would deliver the 00s silently just looking for times be in 4 different places maybe or he might change tempo Oh. Oh be 0. 00 and some nights he died better deaths the best deaths would just be when the audience and I were together and we were all we were all kind of together wanting I suppose home to say something what can you suppose happening to something is happening but we don't know what it is. There is gone is gone. And the rest is silence. Which. But now. And now I think yes you have to do things on the radio looking at it like you know something's going wrong with the electronics too if you go for over 12 seconds I think there is an alarm that goes off and things were running around the building and I think this means that we're almost done right it does. But we have something we'd like to share with people who heard this program yes. We actually have a website Radiolab dot org And if you go there and you know actually really go there you can subscribe to our podcast and if you subscribe to our podcast and you know actually subscribe you'll find that we often release stuff on the podcast 1st in you. Before we release stuff on the broadcast which is what you're hearing now one . Of the latter than on. Your. Radio dot org is the address and if you want to e-mail us with any thoughts Radiolab at w. N.y.c. Or is our e-mail address I'm javelin rod and I'm up across record Thanks for listening. And. Coming up now it's Freakonomics Radio 1st though we're going to check the roadways with Terry Lee She's in Daly City north down to 80 and John Daly Boulevard 2 separate accidents reported blocking the 2 right lanes and the off front some injuries reported here and traffic is stop and go from he believe are into Oakland southbound 8416th it looks like there's a car into the center divide now blocking in the left lane I'm Jerry Lee for k.q.e.d. Thanks Terry support for k.q.e.d. Comes from p.g. And e. Reminding customers to stay away from downed power lines if a power line falls on a car or near the home stay inside and warn others to keep far away to report a downed power line call 911 1st and then call p.g. And e. . More rain showers possibly thunderstorms tonight in the Bay area overnight lows in the fifty's and will have continued rain and showers tomorrow this is k.q.e.d. Public Radio. San Francisco and North Highlands Sacramento the time now is 3 pm it's. This is Freakonomics Radio the show that explores the hidden side of everything here's your host Stephen Dubner. This week on Freakonomics Radio we continue our conversation from last week about gender disparity in Hollywood it begins early being highly engaged in the Disney princess culture at a young age tend to be related to more girly girl behavior and this princess isn't seems to trickle into the economics of the broader movie business you know Hollywood is leaving money on the table the Academy Award winner Gina Davis tells us what she's doing about it I've been there hundreds of times to talk to every possible division they have so is it working you'll find out right after this hour's news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst a vigil was held at the Naval Air Station Pensacola today for the 3 people shot and killed when a Saudi military pilot opened fire at the base sheriff's deputies then shot and killed the gunman Roger White House was at the ceremony he says he will always remember the victims we're going to keep it in our minds we're going to keep it I have to keep in a large we're not going to forget this moment and it doesn't this authorities say the shooter was one of about 200 foreign nationals getting training at the base as part of a program for u.s. Allies who buy u.s. Military aircraft defense secretary Marquez 1st says despite news that the gunman appears to have posted criticism of u.s. Wars and possibly quoted Osama bin Laden he isn't prepared to call the attack terrorism just yet President Trump Iran's foreign minister says the u.s. And Iran have exchanged prisoners and Iranian scientist arrested in Chicago on sanctions violations is heading home as is an American grad student imprisoned on espionage charges N.P.R.'s Peter Kenyon reports our family is complete again said the wife of Princeton graduate student she will Huang as news of his release broke long had been arrested in 2016 while working on his doctoral dissertation in Iran u.s. Officials denied Iran's claim that Wang had been sent to spy on Iran's President Trump and Secretary of State might pump a 0 both hailed won't release Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted photos of himself flying back to Iran with scientist Massud soon the money who had been arrested in Chicago last year and charged with violating trade sanctions the swap comes amid generally hostile relations between Washington and Tehran Peter Kenyon n.p.r. .