- 18 hours ago
First broadcast 29th December 2015.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sarah Millican
Josh Widdicombe
Tommy Tiernan
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sarah Millican
Josh Widdicombe
Tommy Tiernan
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
00:04good evening and welcome to QI, where this week I shall be messing with your minds. Joining me on the
00:11psychiatrist's couch we have the open-minded Sarah Millican, the sharp-minded Josh Ridican, the broad-minded Tommy Tiernan,
00:33and, oh, never mind, it's Alan Davis. So, let's be mindful of their buzzers. Sarah goes,
00:46you were always on my mind. Josh goes, I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set
00:57on you.
00:59Tommy goes,
01:00so you will find if it comes a time for making you find life.
01:06And Alan goes,
01:08mind the gas.
01:11Mind the gas.
01:13Good.
01:18So, it's time to get down to minding our own business. Alan, we've been working together now for 13 years,
01:25playing together, I like to think of it.
01:26Of course.
01:26Quite wrongly. We get on like a mouse on fire.
01:32Was it love at first sight?
01:33Oh, yeah, absolutely, Stephen.
01:35Oh!
01:39Not such a shame, no.
01:42Well, it's about the mind and another capacity of the mind, one of its most important capacities that begins with
01:48M.
01:49Memory.
01:50Memory is right, yeah, absolutely. Can we really remember things 13 years ago, emotional states, do we remember them accurately?
01:57Things like falling in love at first sight.
02:00But isn't there a difference between fact and truth?
02:06Right.
02:0713 years at QI collapses.
02:09Keep going.
02:10We like this.
02:11So, I would remember stuff from my childhood that my father says didn't happen, but there's truth in the memory.
02:20Yes.
02:21I have a memory he would suggest that it never happened.
02:23Of him holding me by the ankles over the side of a ship.
02:33He thinks that's a false memory syndrome.
02:35He questions it.
02:36But I know that the feeling of being held by the ankles over the side of a ship by my
02:42father speaks the truth of my childhood.
02:45Right.
02:46That the facts may not support.
02:49I feel that's very profound and correct, I think.
02:51So, the truth in the feeling of the memory.
02:53Yeah.
02:53So, the feeling is nothing too fast.
02:55You wouldn't fail a lie detector test if you explain that memory to a polygraph.
02:59Much to my father's staggering.
03:02Right.
03:02I think I've got the opposite, because I think my first memory is something that I've been told so many
03:08times happened.
03:10Yeah.
03:11That I don't think I do remember it.
03:13Yeah, so that's the opposite of what...
03:15Tommy, you've had yours reinforced by your family.
03:19Does that make you worry that you might be a robot?
03:21LAUGHTER
03:23And, like, they've just been...
03:24All these memories have just been uploaded.
03:27LAUGHTER
03:27Well, we're all a bit like that.
03:28I mean, certainly in terms of falling in love at first sight, there was a survey of 10,000 people
03:33in long-term relationships.
03:35And half of the men in that survey said they fell in love at first sight.
03:40A quarter of the women said they fell in love at first sight.
03:42I just...
03:44Do you know what that is, though?
03:45I think that's just the law of averages, because, say, like, you're a single man.
03:50I think, when I've been single, I fall in love with women 20 to 30 times a day.
03:56LAUGHTER
03:58So, the law of averages, eventually, the one I get together with, she'll be one of the 400,000 I
04:03fell in love with.
04:04There is a sense, which many people would say, that despite this view of women's sentimental literature,
04:12and the rest of it, men are far more sentimental than women.
04:16Women are practical.
04:18And less sentimental.
04:19And they probably have a...
04:20That's why men are...
04:21LAUGHTER
04:23LAUGHTER
04:23Well, see?
04:25Why's he got his face in a way from him?
04:28LAUGHTER
04:29That's very cool.
04:30The other side of the wall, it's a picture of Stephen.
04:33LAUGHTER
04:34Time to be.
04:36LAUGHTER
04:39Oh, dear.
04:40He's looking at the back of your head.
04:42LAUGHTER
04:43Yeah, maybe that's what it is.
04:45That's wrong.
04:45You see there, he's all dreamy-eyed, and maybe you're clear-eyed.
04:48But women are more practical, because they've got more shit to get done.
04:52LAUGHTER
04:53That's what it is.
04:54Do you know that story about the journalist who interviewed a busy sort of woman
04:58and said that we're doing this survey about who makes the important decisions in your household?
05:04And she says, oh, my husband makes all the important decisions.
05:06I make all the trivial decisions.
05:08Like what the children should wear, and what they should eat, and how much we should spend on our household
05:12budget,
05:13and where we should go on holiday, and what sort of car we should drive.
05:16But my husband makes all the important decisions, like whether there should be a United Nations presence in Bosnia.
05:24LAUGHTER
05:26That sort of sums up this.
05:30Men fantasising about political things where women get on with the real business of love.
05:34I don't think I fell in love at first sight.
05:36You didn't?
05:37I don't think so.
05:38I don't think...that makes it sound...
05:39I've never been so hurt in my life.
05:41LAUGHTER
05:43There are other memory tricks.
05:45Can you remember what you were doing when the World Trade Centre was...
05:48Yes.
05:49I was one of the first people in England to find out, because I was watching Lunchtime Neighbours.
05:54LAUGHTER
05:55What was the four people to find out then?
05:58Yeah.
05:58And they interrupted...it was at the end of Lunchtime Neighbours.
06:00They crossed straight to New York.
06:02So you saw the first plane go in...
06:03Yeah.
06:04Well, first I saw Lou close up the pub.
06:06Yeah.
06:08LAUGHTER
06:09LAUGHTER
06:11A friend of mine was living in New York when it happened and slept through it.
06:19LAUGHTER
06:19Wow.
06:20Wow.
06:21He'd been out drinking the night before.
06:23When he was a friend of yours, was he Irish?
06:24Irish, yeah.
06:25And...
06:26LAUGHTER
06:28Oh, dear.
06:28What's going on?
06:29Where the fuck is everybody?
06:32LAUGHTER
06:33What a night!
06:34What a night!
06:36What a night!
06:37Well, a lot of people will tell you that they saw the first plane go into the tower on
06:419-11, and then the second, and then them both falling.
06:45What they can't have seen is the first plane going in.
06:48That it was only shown on television on the second day.
06:50Because it would have been very suspicious if they'd cut to New York...
06:54LAUGHTER
06:55..before the plane went to the tower.
06:57LAUGHTER
06:57Josh, that's exactly what the conspiracy theories think, because George W. Bush said,
07:02I, you know, seeing that plane go into the first tower, my heart sank.
07:05Everyone said, ah, he saw it!
07:06That means he must have had a secret camera watching it.
07:09That means he must have planned it.
07:11But, in fact, it just means he had a faulty memory, like many people.
07:14Because he was reading a book about my first goat, was it?
07:17To children.
07:17To children.
07:18Yeah, not just to himself.
07:20LAUGHTER
07:23Well, similar to your memories, they have found that researchers
07:27convinced 70% of participants that they had committed crimes,
07:32including theft and assault, during their adolescence,
07:35even though none of them had.
07:37And they just talked to them about it, and they said,
07:39according to your parents, you did this.
07:41And social pressure.
07:42Most people are able to retrieve memories of things they've done.
07:46You stole a car when you were...
07:48Don't you remember?
07:48And they kind of go, oh, yeah.
07:50Oh, yes, yes, I did.
07:52I did, that's right.
07:52When my father can't sleep, he says he lies in bed
07:58and tries to remember things he's never remembered before.
08:03Ooh!
08:05Wow!
08:06That's very...
08:07That's profound.
08:08That's amazing.
08:09Yes, well, we'll do an experiment, actually, with memory
08:13a little later on.
08:14So, there we are.
08:15I can't remember what kind of point I was trying to make there.
08:17But, fortunately, neither can you.
08:20Now, for something that should seriously mess with your mind,
08:24how much would you pay for a machine that can print money?
08:28I'll make it your mind up!
08:30Nothing.
08:32Because the person you bought it from wouldn't need cash.
08:37Oh, clever.
08:39Well, I'm going to put it up for office, because I've got a machine,
08:42which I hope, you will see, is able to print money.
08:45What I've got is a piece of paper, which is the right size,
08:51and my printer, which is pretty accurate.
08:54At least if I print it out.
08:56Oh, very good.
08:57There it is.
08:58Ooh!
08:59There you go.
09:02Blimey!
09:03What do you think?
09:03Oh.
09:05Hang on.
09:08So, how much would you pay for that machine?
09:11I'd pay a tenner, cos...
09:13LAUGHTER
09:14And then I'd go out onto the South Bank and make loads of money.
09:18LAUGHTER
09:19We'll keep that.
09:21We'll keep that.
09:21We'll keep that tenner.
09:22And, er, maybe we'll see if we can make more money later on.
09:25But this idea of making money, of course,
09:28goes deep, deep, deep into human nature.
09:31And there was a man called Victor Lustig,
09:33who was one of the great conmen of the time,
09:35who, unlike me, cheated and built a machine
09:37that actually didn't print money at all,
09:39whereas mine, as you can see, genuinely does.
09:42He... he, in his lifetime, sold the Eiffel Tower twice.
09:47LAUGHTER
09:47So he was pretty good.
09:48LAUGHTER
09:48But he also built a machine for creating hundred-dollar bills.
09:52And then he'd sell the machine for $30,000.
09:55It was very successful.
09:56He went to prison, though, sadly.
09:58LAUGHTER
09:59I was given a rose underneath the Eiffel Tower once.
10:02Just gave...
10:02You were given a rose?
10:04Yeah, it was so lovely.
10:05And I didn't think I looked especially nice that day,
10:06but, you know, maybe I did.
10:08Oh, sure.
10:08And then the same man ran after my husband,
10:11for 15 euros.
10:13LAUGHTER
10:15Yes.
10:15LAUGHTER
10:17I think if you had a machine that made money...
10:21As I do.
10:22As you do.
10:23Yeah.
10:23I think it would drive you demented.
10:25And I think you'd probably knock a great crack out of it
10:27for about a year.
10:29Yeah.
10:29And then you'd do anything to get rid of it.
10:31Would you make the money at home?
10:33Or would you just keep the machine in your handbag?
10:36LAUGHTER
10:36Well, you...
10:37It would be...
10:38Just like when you're shopping.
10:39You'd never leave the machine.
10:40You wouldn't be able to leave the machine.
10:42I...
10:42Yeah, I...
10:43I make about 2,000 or 3,000 every morning.
10:45And I...
10:46If I need more, I'll come back.
10:48Are you talking about voiceover work?
10:50LAUGHTER
10:58So, yeah, they probably weren't completely convinced
11:01by my money-making machine, but tell me this.
11:03Which do you find most convincing?
11:06The IKEA effect?
11:08The rhyme-as-reason effect?
11:11Or the frequency illusion?
11:13Is the IKEA effect just arrows on the floor?
11:16Is that what that is?
11:17Just not being able to get out of anywhere ever.
11:19LAUGHTER
11:20That...
11:21If you can...
11:21Is that prison?
11:21Is that prison?
11:23Who isn't my tea later?
11:25LAUGHTER
11:26It may be better understood by saying things like...
11:29If you make crab apple jelly, say, or...
11:32Or...
11:32Or jam.
11:33In my case, apricot jam I made last year.
11:36And it's just the best apricot jam there ever was.
11:38I know this.
11:39It's a fact.
11:40It's the best apricot jam anyone's ever tasted.
11:43But I'm told that it's part of the IKEA effect.
11:45In other words, if you've made it yourself,
11:47from your own ingredients,
11:49you just think it's better than anything else
11:51that you could buy in a shop or anything else.
11:53Is that why people are really smug about their babies?
11:55Yes!
11:56Basically, they are an IKEA effect.
12:04Do you have any equivalent of that effect?
12:07I'm fierce fond of a decent bowel movement.
12:10LAUGHTER
12:14Fierce fond.
12:16I like that.
12:18I would often call my wife and children in and...
12:22LAUGHTER
12:24Look what Daddy made.
12:27LAUGHTER
12:27I thought I was reading.
12:29LAUGHTER
12:29That is preferable to if you're a fan of someone else's,
12:32though, isn't it?
12:33I'm a huge fan of Alan Davis's bowel movements.
12:37LAUGHTER
12:41Well, I think things like you're going through the forest
12:43and you see a hole up a tree and you throw a stone at it
12:46and the first one you stow goes straight in the hole.
12:49There's never anyone around.
12:51There's never anyone to watch it, that's true.
12:52That's very satisfying.
12:53A squirrel comes out going...
12:55LAUGHTER
12:55Well, let's move on to the second in our list, then,
12:58which is the rhyme as reason effect.
13:01What do you think that can be about?
13:03Is that like, um, no pain, no gain?
13:07Yes.
13:07Or treat them mean, keep them keen?
13:10Yes.
13:10Oh, like, there's loads of alcohol ones, isn't there?
13:12Like, if you drink wine, you'll be fine.
13:15Oh, yeah.
13:16Beer, you'll be queer.
13:17Only shots.
13:19LAUGHTER
13:19But that didn't work, didn't it?
13:21Yeah, yeah, it worked on me.
13:22Only shots, you'll get the trots, that sort of thing.
13:25Yeah, there's all the boozy ones.
13:26Isn't there one with grape and grain?
13:28Yeah.
13:29Oh.
13:29Never the twain with no.
13:32LAUGHTER
13:34They do seem to work in as much as
13:36if you suggest a kind of rhyming piece of advice to someone,
13:40and to another group of people,
13:43you put the same sentiment that doesn't rhyme.
13:46They'll believe the rhyming one.
13:47So, for example, they gave wealth makes health
13:50to a group of people,
13:51and almost all of them agreed with it.
13:53They then said,
13:54financial success improves medical outcomes.
13:57LAUGHTER
13:59And they didn't agree at all,
14:00despite it meaning the same thing.
14:02So it shows there is a strange quality that a rhyming face...
14:06And also, it's easier to remember as well.
14:07So you might want to pass it on to somebody else.
14:09That's right.
14:09And it seems just to have some sort of authority or imprimatur
14:13that an ordinary phrase doesn't.
14:15It's also the Keats heuristic, because it's beautiful.
14:17It must be true.
14:19Beauty's truth and truth's beauty is the idea.
14:22You may remember O.J. Simpson's defence lawyer,
14:24Johnny Cochran.
14:25Do you remember?
14:26Oh.
14:26It doesn't fit.
14:28If the glove doesn't fit...
14:29Oh, the glove doesn't fit.
14:30You must...
14:31And quit.
14:32That's it, yeah.
14:33That seems to be one of the things that got O.J.
14:35That's quite specific as well.
14:36You can't use that.
14:38LAUGHTER
14:40It's not going to come up a lot, that one, is it?
14:42No, no.
14:43It worked on the day, though.
14:45You've got to be in it...
14:47To win it.
14:47To win it, yes.
14:49Point to me in prizes.
14:50Points.
14:50Oh, I'm not very good at this.
14:51No, hang on.
14:53An apple a day, of course.
14:55A doctor away.
14:56Red light in the sky, shepherd's pie.
14:58No, that's not...
14:59No.
15:00Red sky night, shepherd's delight.
15:03LAUGHTER
15:06The frequency illusion, does that mean anything to you?
15:09No.
15:11No reason why it should.
15:12When I use the word heuristic, it may be that you didn't know the word.
15:15But it's quite likely that in a couple of days you might see it in a magazine
15:18or hear someone else using it on the radio or television.
15:22You go, that's weird, I only just heard that word for the first time two days ago.
15:25And now it keeps cropping up everywhere.
15:27Yeah.
15:27Have you ever had that experience?
15:28I was talking to someone about this.
15:30It was Richard Osman because he was complaining about people saying
15:32there's always tennis questions on Pointless.
15:34Oh, yes.
15:34And the moment you think that there's tennis questions on Pointless,
15:38if you see one you think, well, that completely reinforces everything.
15:41Yes.
15:41That's right.
15:42All these things are called a sort of cognitive bias.
15:45They push you into a way of thinking some different ways of...
15:49So, you can tell the most appalling lie if it rhymes or it's featured on QI.
15:56What did the amnesiac say when the doctor asked him his name?
16:03I don't know the answer to that question.
16:05No!
16:08No, no, no.
16:10I was telling you that you didn't know it very close.
16:13Very clever.
16:14Give him his points back.
16:15He didn't know the answer to the question.
16:17Did he just say his name because it was written on the inside label of his knickers?
16:21Yes.
16:24The contortionist amnesiac.
16:26Yes.
16:27There's the guy that...
16:28They said, what's your name?
16:30And he asked for a pen and paper.
16:32And he drew a piano and they brought him a piano and he wouldn't speak to them but he'd just
16:35play the piano.
16:36Do you remember this guy?
16:37I do.
16:38Yeah, and then it turned out, I think, that he was a con artist.
16:40Yeah, he was.
16:41He didn't have amnesia at all.
16:42Because if you have amnesia you don't forget your name and you don't forget your past life.
16:47What you're not capable of doing is remembering new things that happened to you.
16:52You've just ruined loads of films.
16:54I know.
16:55Absolutely right.
16:56It's films in particular that relish this idea that you might have a trauma and you lose all memory of
17:01who you are.
17:02You become a fresh new empty person.
17:04And very often as well a second clump on the head will bring your memory back.
17:09And all this is utterly unknown to medical science.
17:13It's a very rudimentary psychiatric hospital in the west of Ireland would use that as a technique.
17:19Tump on the back of the head.
17:21If it was a thump in the head that got you sick it would be a thump in the head
17:23that would make you better.
17:26There's another kind of cognitive impairment which is to do with the fact that if you take a photograph of
17:32something
17:32you don't remember it nearly as well as if you look at it.
17:35Do you know, they should announce that before every concert.
17:40Concert, exactly.
17:40And say, I think anyone that takes a photo at a concert needs to be thrown out.
17:46Yeah.
17:46Out of the country.
17:47Yeah.
17:49It does my head in.
17:50It is very peculiar.
17:52Especially as you say, knowing as we do, that you'll remember it better if you just look.
17:56And also in that situation you can just get a postcard in the shop.
18:00Yeah.
18:00Right.
18:00Exactly.
18:02Yeah.
18:02Interestingly, on the other hand, if you zoom in on an object in a museum or something like that,
18:08you remember both the area you zoomed in on and the object itself.
18:12Because there you're concentrating on the thing rather than just framing it.
18:15It's a strange mental thing.
18:17Yeah.
18:19We're back in memory lane and now it's time for our memory test.
18:22All right.
18:23I want the audience and you four, if you'd be kind enough, to listen to and remember these
18:29words.
18:29It's bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace,
18:47yawn, drowsy.
18:50All right.
18:51Remember those words if you'd be so kind.
18:55Good.
18:55Well, I think we've earned ourselves another money-making moment.
18:59Yes?
18:59Go on.
19:00Excellent.
19:01Because I've got another machine.
19:02Well, it's not a machine in this case.
19:03It's just an ordinary blotter and a piece of paper.
19:07This is a...
19:09See?
19:10There you go.
19:11It's all pretty straightforward, isn't it?
19:13The blotter is to blot out all the excess ink as we try and print out this.
19:18We try and print it out.
19:19There we go.
19:19Oh, let's have a go.
19:23Oh, yes, that's worked.
19:24Oh, that's good.
19:26Oh, that's good.
19:26That is so good.
19:28There you are.
19:29There you are.
19:31More money for us.
19:33Isn't that teasing?
19:35Are you going to show us how they work later on?
19:37Of course.
19:39Good.
19:39Before I kill you.
19:41I don't mind.
19:43Oh, you don't mind?
19:43Good.
19:44No.
19:44What a way to go.
19:45That's the train up on time.
19:48Now for some multiple choice.
19:49Listen carefully.
19:50True or false?
19:51True or false questions are more likely to be true than false.
19:56True or false questions are more likely to be true.
20:04I'm going to go.
20:12True.
20:12I'm going to go.
20:13I'm going to go.
20:13True.
20:16I'm going to go.
20:22True.
20:22That's right.
20:23Yeah, it's...
20:24Isn't a vault or a bank where all the true or false questions in the world were ever
20:29asked and somebody decides to count which are more true or more false?
20:35That's like saying, when you're given directions, is the first direction more often likely to be turned left or turn
20:42right?
20:42That's where you're going.
20:43Left?
20:44Yes.
20:45You can analyse a huge bank of questions which is what was done.
20:49American exam questions in this instance.
20:52And they found that it was 56% of them the answer was true and 44% the answer was
20:58false.
20:58Right.
20:59And it seems the reason is that the examiners of course have to think of the questions all the time.
21:03And it's a lot easier to think of a true question than it is to think of a false one.
21:07Yeah.
21:07When I did my GCSEs, they said, as a tip, if you're doing a multiple choice A, B, C, D
21:14and you don't know the answer, go B or C because the lazy examiners are more likely to put the
21:22answer in the middle than on the edge.
21:25Would have been better if they'd just taught us the answer.
21:27Yes, of course.
21:30Don't worry about learning about science.
21:32Just go C.
21:34All right.
21:34I'll give you another chance then.
21:35OK.
21:36If question one is true in an exam, what is question two likely to be?
21:43True.
21:45Oh!
21:46No, it's true, false, true, false.
21:49It's more prevalent.
21:50Oh, that's so boring though.
21:52It's not absolutely guaranteed, of course.
21:54The chance the next answer will be different from the present one is 63% though, so it's quite a
21:58high amount.
21:59So if question two the answer was true, question three 63% that it will be false.
22:04The way therefore to optimize your scores if you're doing a true or false is to answer all the ones
22:09you know the answer to, obviously.
22:11Oh.
22:13Then the ones next to them put the opposite.
22:16Oh.
22:17And then all the rest of the left over put true.
22:19Oh.
22:19And then you've got your best chance of a good score.
22:23Oh, that's right.
22:38When am I going to have to repeat all these words that you may just remember?
22:42LAUGHTER
22:43Keep thinking of them.
22:44Now, what's been happening while you've been watching?
22:46Er...
22:47Er...
22:47Oh, it's blinking.
22:51Oh, look, it's a different person.
22:54Oh, the dog's still there.
22:59It's a woman.
23:00Well, there we are.
23:01Now, so what have you seen?
23:02That thing's just appeared.
23:04What thing's that?
23:05On the purple.
23:06What's that brown thing?
23:08The brown thing on the purple.
23:09In the centre there.
23:10Yeah.
23:11Has that been there all the time?
23:13Yeah, no, it's always been there.
23:14Yeah, I've said that.
23:15Tell me what you have.
23:17Are you sure you've seen it?
23:17There was a girl with an umbrella and it turned into a person with a dog of...
23:21Person with a dog.
23:22Indeterminate.
23:22Yeah, but the...
23:23Anything else?
23:24The man with the dog turned into a woman with the dog.
23:26Right.
23:27Is that right?
23:28Well, we'll see.
23:29Let's have a look this time without the blinks and there's rather a lot you've missed.
23:32Ooh.
23:32Ooh.
23:33King of Thai Noodle comes up.
23:35No.
23:35Oh, no, it's still there.
23:36The lighting Thai Noodle.
23:37But it's different though.
23:39No.
23:40What?
23:40No.
23:41Shut up.
23:41Shut up.
23:43Stephen Fry.
23:45What did he do this to us?
23:47Isn't it amazing?
23:49Wow.
23:49What?
23:50I spent my whole time looking at the person.
23:52Yeah, me too.
23:52That's what humans do.
23:54And a tree turned up and really...
23:55There's a...
23:56Have you seen that video?
23:58There's a study they did in America and you have...
24:00There's these people passing basketballs back and forward.
24:04Yes.
24:04And you have to count how many...
24:06Count the passes.
24:07Yeah.
24:07And they miss that a guy dressed in a huge ape suit comes along and does that.
24:11Waving at the camera.
24:12Waving at the camera.
24:13It is extraordinary.
24:14It's a famous experiment and a brilliant one.
24:16It's absolutely right, Josh.
24:17It was a short film shown at the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture by Professor Bruce Hood, who
24:23is a great friend of QI and he's given us that film.
24:25And that kind of blindness, as it were, to changes in a scene and to things that happen
24:30is very common and is a problem for witnesses and so on.
24:35But there's also, every day, it might happen to us, if you look into a mirror and you look
24:41at your right eye in the mirror and then you look at your left eye, you never see your
24:46eyes move.
24:47But they do.
24:48Why don't you see it?
24:50The reason is the brain shuts down your vision for that moment.
24:54So you are functionally blind at just that incredibly small moment.
24:58But we don't question the fact we don't see our eyes move.
25:00We sort of don't expect to, because we used not to.
25:03We used to not seeing our eyes move.
25:05But anybody watching us would see our eyes moving, because they are.
25:08Do you ever do that thing where you look at your eyes in the mirror and then you, like,
25:11move your head around?
25:13Yes.
25:13And it just looks like your eyes are staying in the same place.
25:15Yes, it's very extraordinary, isn't it?
25:16Ah, hours of fun.
25:20I didn't have many toys when I was growing up.
25:22That's enough, isn't it?
25:23Your own body is a wonderful toy.
25:25Oh, I wish.
25:26Oh.
25:30Oh.
25:31Sorry.
25:33It's called, it's called saccadic masking, this form of blindness.
25:38And it can add up to 30 to 45 minutes a day in most humans.
25:42It means we're temporally blind for 2% of our lives.
25:46How many people are looking in the mirror for that length of time?
25:48No, it's not only.
25:49Other moments.
25:52Just 45 minutes, just watching myself.
25:55I'll get older.
25:57That's enough fun.
25:59Inattentional blindness stops you from noticing things that are right in front of your eyes.
26:03So, pay attention now.
26:04It's time for another magical money-making moment.
26:07Ooh.
26:08Yes.
26:08I've got a proper, proper printing press here.
26:11It's very, it's a rather exciting one.
26:14And as you can see, it's got all the, all the bells and whistles.
26:17And it's even got a little calibration here.
26:19Let's, can you see it's on 10, I'm going to move it up to 20.
26:22Because I've got a 20 sized one here.
26:25This, I hope this works.
26:27It takes a long time to fill it with ink.
26:28So, if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it twice.
26:30Oh, yes, that works.
26:31Oh, good.
26:32There you are.
26:32Oh, wow.
26:33There you are.
26:36Oh, there we go.
26:38Um, Stephen, one of the options is 100.
26:42I just want to see what one of them looks like.
26:44OK.
26:47Uh, oh, oh, there we go.
26:50And, oh, oh, it's 50.
26:52It should be 100.
26:54Oh, it is 100.
26:55Oh, there you are.
26:56That's good.
26:58There you are.
26:58There you are.
27:01There you are.
27:02And, uh, made a proper amount of money today.
27:05Just shows, with a little application, a little skill, you can make money pretty easily.
27:12Yeah.
27:12But I feel guilty about it, so I'll probably give it away to a bookmaker.
27:17Um.
27:19Now, how much sleep does a paradoxical insomniac get?
27:26What making your mind up?
27:28Paradoxical, lots.
27:29Well, yes, he does.
27:33More than he thinks.
27:34Yes.
27:36It's like a paradoxical kleptomaniac who leaves things in shops.
27:42What a wonderful thing to be.
27:48He's left a DVD on the tea bags again.
27:52Yeah, it's a very rare condition, but essentially your body sleeps very happily, and all the scientific equipment that goes
28:00onto the brain to check that you're sleeping shows that you are sleeping, but you're awake.
28:03And you remember where you are and what's going on, but you're refreshed.
28:07Are you doing stuff?
28:09Like, are you driving a bus?
28:10No.
28:10No, absolutely not.
28:11No, they're definitely asleep in bed.
28:13So, which one of those two is it?
28:17They're aware of their surroundings during the night, as if they were awake, but they quite clearly weren't.
28:22Every brain scan shows that they are asleep.
28:24Is this not haunted?
28:24No.
28:25It's weird.
28:26Yeah.
28:26It's called properly sleep state misperception.
28:29There's also an opposite condition, negative sleep state misperception, in which you think you've been sleeping for much longer than
28:36you have.
28:37You're convinced you've slept for eight hours.
28:38When you wake up, when your beard is wet, and you go, what the hell, back to sleep.
28:47So, are these people, do they, sorry, I don't really understand, and I think you're lying, but anyway.
28:56Are these people, the sort of people, do they say, oh, I've had a good night's sleep, or do they
28:59say, I haven't slept a wink?
29:00How do they feel?
29:01They feel refreshed.
29:02They feel refreshed, they feel fine.
29:03But how do they know they haven't slept then?
29:05Well, because they've been awake all the time.
29:07They've slept haven't they?
29:08In their mind, they've been awake all the time.
29:10Is this when, you know, when you can have to be awake at ten to five?
29:15Oh, yeah.
29:16No matter what happens, you have to be awake at ten to five, and miraculously, you are awake at ten
29:22to five.
29:22That's an alarm clock, love.
29:24No, I do.
29:26No, I have that too.
29:27I do, definitely.
29:28It's extraordinary.
29:29So, is that the same kind of?
29:29That's very well.
29:30At school, I mean, if we were going on a, you know, little dawn raid or something like that, they'd
29:36say,
29:37Sorry.
29:37That's what we have, well, you know, to do a raid on the kitchens and steal jelly and things, didn't
29:42you?
29:43Sorry, I forgot, I forgot you grew up in an Enid Blyton novel.
29:53I'm sorry.
29:54I'm sorry.
29:54I'm sorry.
29:54You would, you would do this onto the pillow.
29:56You'd go one, two, three, four, like that, and you'd wake up at four in the morning.
30:00And it always seemed to work.
30:02Honestly, I can't remember the time when it didn't.
30:04That is bullshit.
30:04No, okay.
30:06I totally agree, sir.
30:09It's maybe a false memory I've got, but it's a very clear one.
30:12If it's so true, I want you to give us your phone and alarm clock, and never use it again
30:19to wake yourself up.
30:20And just use the head hitting.
30:22Yeah.
30:23It all changes when you get an enlarged prostate.
30:46Anyway, how well you sleep is really all in your mind.
30:50How would you swear like a prepubescent supercomputer?
30:55Bum, bum, wee.
30:57Bum, bum, wee, poo.
30:58Pretty close.
30:59They're the main, they're the main ones.
31:01The big three?
31:02It's a supercomputer.
31:04We've called it prepubescent because it's about 11 years old now.
31:09And...
31:10It swears?
31:11Well, it's called Watson, and it is one of the smartest supercomputers around.
31:15It was first trained to win at the American quiz game Jeopardy, which you may have seen if you've ever
31:21been in the United States.
31:22It's on every single day.
31:23I gave you an answer and you have to say the question.
31:26Exactly.
31:26So this actor played Jonathan Creek.
31:28The answer is, on Jeopardy, who is Alan Davis?
31:31Yeah.
31:31It's been going for 40 years or something on the American TV.
31:34Does the supercomputer do proper swearing or swearing like mother fun staring?
31:38Mellon farmer.
31:38Yeah.
31:39Who's that?
31:39Well, what they did was they fed it an online dictionary, and I think you can guess which one it
31:43was if it was swearing.
31:44Urban dictionary.
31:45Urban dictionary.
31:46Yes.
31:46Which is a rather naughty dictionary.
31:48It is.
31:49It has bad M-words.
31:51I don't know.
31:52I really...
31:52What's motorboat?
31:54Am I...
31:54Am I the...
31:55Oh.
31:55OK.
31:58Whoa.
32:01We're not going to do it.
32:02It's where you put your head in between there, and then do that...
32:04Oh, yes.
32:06It's rather sweet that, isn't it?
32:08Rather sweet!
32:10Well...
32:11I don't know.
32:12It's nicer than mingo.
32:14Muffin top.
32:15Milkshake.
32:16Where's your man cave?
32:20Oh, no.
32:21Have I got a man...
32:22No.
32:23No.
32:24Is it like...
32:25Is it like a den where you...
32:26Oh!
32:27I don't know.
32:27I'm like...
32:28That sounded like you'd suddenly got a catchphrase.
32:31Where's your man cave?
32:34Where's your man cave?
32:35Sarah, where's your man cave?
32:36Where's your man cave?
32:37Where's your man cave?
32:37You definitely...
32:38Sarah, you definitely have one man cave.
32:41The question is, do you have two?
32:42Ah.
32:43Yes.
32:48No.
32:50I don't know.
32:52I'm still recovering from motorboat.
32:57So, that's Urban Dictionary, and it was popped into Watson, this IBM computer, and unfortunately,
33:04he learnt too much from it, and so when they were testing it, before it went on jeopardy,
33:09he was just saying bullshit to every question.
33:12He was thinking...
33:15Lycastroppy prepubescent, basically.
33:16He never...
33:17He never...
33:17The question he asked was, never where's your man cave?
33:20No, it never was.
33:21We just gave you some N's, just because it's the M series, but there are plenty of others.
33:26Are they all, like, new words, though?
33:27Because milkshake's been around for a long time, but has it got a new meaning that I need to learn?
33:32Yeah.
33:32You're young.
33:34Um...
33:35What is it?
33:35Well, Khalees sung, my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, didn't she?
33:40Because she had, like, a van that's old milkshakes.
33:45If that's what you want to think she meant, that's what she meant.
33:47My dormitory at school had a milkshake club, but we won't go into that.
33:51LAUGHTER
33:55It wasn't all like Enid Blythe, then, was it?
34:01How were you?
34:02LAUGHTER
34:03Where is the, would you imagine, most powerful computer in the world?
34:07NASA.
34:08Not NASA, not the Pentagon, not in America, in fact.
34:10Beijing.
34:11Well, yes, China is the answer.
34:13There it is.
34:14Huge!
34:15Look at that.
34:15It's, uh, pretty impressive.
34:17It's called Tianhe, which means Milky Way in Mandarin.
34:20Didn't he used to play that at school?
34:22LAUGHTER
34:25Sorry!
34:26I'll stop that.
34:27Oh, dear.
34:28It can run 100,000 times as many calculations per second as there are stars in the galaxy.
34:36Oh, fine.
34:37Yeah.
34:38All computers, including that, are very slow still when it comes to what?
34:42The fastest supercomputers can mimic one second of human brain activity in about 40 minutes.
34:51They're rubbish at Snap, for example.
34:53Yeah.
34:54So we still, for the moment at least, we still are the fastest processor on the planet.
35:00I spent an entire summer trying to teach a cat how to play Snap.
35:04Really?
35:05Yeah.
35:05We had this cat who every now and again would just kind of go...
35:09LAUGHTER
35:13So, we thought we'd take it to the fair, and if we did...
35:17LAUGHTER
35:18If we were trained to play Snap, it would make a fortune.
35:21LAUGHTER
35:23Well, they used to have it fairs.
35:24Pigs that spelled out words.
35:26You'd go to the fair with your learned pig, and you'd, uh, you'd have alphabet cards
35:31in a huge circle with a pig inside, and...
35:34Was it mostly just help?
35:35No, you'd, you'd ask a member of the public, they'd have to pay tuppence or whatever, to
35:40shout a word, and they'd shout the word in a whole barnyard or something, and the pig
35:44would go up to the B, and then up to the A, and then up to the R, etc, and
35:48spell out the
35:49word.
35:49Like a pig Ouija board?
35:51Kind of, yeah.
35:52And of course, pigs, pigs can't read.
35:54Maybe it was a trick, but it was a very, it was a very good one.
35:56It's simply looking at its owner over there, and he's going like that for B, and whatever,
36:01and that for A, and it worked beautifully.
36:03It's all in Ricky Jay's excellent book, Learned Pigs.
36:07But, um, yeah.
36:08Where were we?
36:09Oh, yes, Watson, the supercomputer, got in trouble because he couldn't stop fucking swearing.
36:14LAUGHTER
36:15And so we glide from the canyons of our minds into the clueless depths of general ignorance.
36:20Fingers on buzzers, if you would.
36:22Er, why did the camel get the hump?
36:24And where?
36:25On their back?
36:26In the desert.
36:27What's it for?
36:29It's, oh, it's, I, I know the, isn't it for food and water?
36:35I knew it!
36:37What?
36:38I thought it was evolved.
36:39It's not.
36:40But why didn't you say?
36:41Because I wanted that to happen to you.
36:43LAUGHTER
36:45The, the surprising thing, perhaps, is that it evolved, not in the deserts, not in the
36:50hot countries, but in the Arctic.
36:52That's where it began.
36:54Like the bactrians there that you see that still live in very cold conditions.
36:57And the hump seems to have developed for fat storage and for warmth.
37:01I thought it was for tourists so that you didn't fall off.
37:05You sit between them, don't you?
37:07You do, you do.
37:08Yeah.
37:09Canadian scientists found fossilised fragments of camel leg bone in Canada,
37:13which were three and a half million years old, and the DNA matched the modern camel.
37:18So, the camel originally got its hump to survive the cold.
37:22In a war between the grass and the grass eaters, who's winning?
37:34The grass eaters.
37:36LAUGHTER
37:40Change it, change it.
37:42You said the grass eaters.
37:46LAUGHTER
37:48Have I finished yet?
37:50The grass eaters is not the right answer.
37:53You don't get away with that.
37:56No, evolution is an inter-species arms race to some extent,
38:00and very often plants do create stratagems to avoid being eaten.
38:04They become poisonous, they become thickly thorned and prickly.
38:08But it seems that the grass doesn't try and stop itself from being eaten.
38:12And the thing about grass is, unlike most plants,
38:14its sort of centre of being is at the bottom,
38:17so you can have the top of the blade as much as you like.
38:20So 95% of it can be eaten like that, and it's perfectly happy just to regrow.
38:24So, it actually does quite well, because it's helped by being kept cropped.
38:28Yeah, in the war between the grass and the grass eaters, everyone's a winner.
38:32Do mushrooms prefer to grow in the light or in the dark?
38:36Always on my mind.
38:39Erm, well, the thing's going to go off if I say in the dark,
38:41so I'm going to say in the light.
38:48The answer is they don't prefer either.
38:50They grow just as well.
38:52They rarely express a preference.
38:55What do you like? Would you like the light on or...?
38:58Maybe a little bedtime story, be tucked in.
39:01But going by how much they thrive, it clearly doesn't make any difference.
39:04So why is it traditional to grow them in the dark?
39:07Because it's a dirty secret.
39:10Like, if you had them in your house, it's not something you tell everybody.
39:13You've got mushrooms in the back bedroom.
39:17It's simply cheaper.
39:19We don't have to turn the light on,
39:20so you just shove them in a cellar or a dark room somewhere you've got,
39:23and they'll grow.
39:24It's that simple.
39:26Not very exciting, but quite interesting.
39:29Magic mushrooms, double M,
39:31they have psychotropic or at least hallucinogenic qualities, I believe, didn't they?
39:38Is that why I was saying that?
39:39That's horrible.
39:42But they have a disadvantage,
39:44which is that you get a terrible tummy ache,
39:46and what do people do in order to obviate this disadvantage?
39:51I'm afraid...
39:52They'd make themselves sick, would they?
39:53Well, no.
39:54What they did is they'd give the mushrooms to the village idiot,
39:59and they didn't have a pee, and they'd drink the pee,
40:02which had all the psychoactive properties.
40:05Who was the idiot in that scenario?
40:07I don't know.
40:08No, it is very unfortunate.
40:11Are we the only creatures who are affected by eating magic mushrooms?
40:15Like if a cow went into a field full of magic mushrooms and ate them all,
40:21would it have some moments of insight that would be impossible to share with us?
40:27And the whole town would gather round him there.
40:32I don't get it.
40:33I don't get it.
40:33I don't get it.
40:35And there was a...
40:36He's trying to tell us something.
40:37There was a theory that Jesus Christ was a magic mushroom.
40:46He actually was a mushroom?
40:48I mightn't have remembered this entirely correctly.
40:53Does your dad deny this story?
40:55There's a thing called the Amanita Muscara,
41:00which is the notion of using mushrooms as a means to transcendence.
41:07And I don't know the rest of the story.
41:10Oh!
41:12You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen.
41:14Yes.
41:15Mushrooms are grown in the dark to save electricity.
41:18So, with that, we stagger dazed and confused
41:21into the most mind-numbing and mind-bending subject of all.
41:26The QI scores.
41:27Oh, how interesting they are.
41:29My goodness me.
41:30In fourth place, with a very respectable minus 22,
41:34is Josh Whittaker.
41:38In third place, with a splendid minus 18, is Sarah Millican.
41:49He's achieved heights that may require oxygen on minus six.
41:53It's Alan Davis!
41:54Oh, no!
41:58What a debut!
41:59Tommy Tiernan on two!
42:02Plus two!
42:09Thanks to Sarah, Josh, Tommy and Alan.
42:12Oh, I nearly forgot our memory test.
42:14Oh, how ironic.
42:15Can we turn the cameras on to the audience?
42:18Let's see.
42:18By a show of hands, which words you remembered me saying?
42:23Who remembered the word bed?
42:26Oh, most of you.
42:27That's pretty good.
42:29Snooze?
42:30I'm not going to lie.
42:31Pretty good.
42:33Sleep?
42:37Oh, the audience!
42:41No, I didn't say sleep.
42:42I said words so closely connected to it that it was easy to force yourself into the memory
42:47of thinking that I did say it.
42:48So you all encountered a sort of false memory planting there.
42:52If you don't believe me, you'll just have to watch the show all over again, won't you?
42:55So, from me, from all of us, thank you and good night!
42:59Thank you very much for her!
42:59Thank you very much I appreciate being here today
42:59I'm veryen
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