[RADIOLAB INTRO]

ROBERT KRULWICH: So you're gonna identify the Washington place? Because I can't remember.

JAD ABUMRAD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ROBERT: Okay. Three, two, one. 

JAD: Ready?

ROBERT: I am ready. But we should tell the audience that we're not gonna—we're gonna start this not in our usual studio spot.

JAD: Not here-here, where we're sitting now. Here.

[audience clapping and cheering]

JAD: Just to explain, this is the Shakespeare Theatre in DC. Recently, Robert and I were there in front of about 800 folks just trying out some material for the show.

ROBERT: Beginning with this story which comes from Plato—actually, by way of Aristophanes. It's a 2,400-year-old story.

JAD: Breaking news, in other words.

ROBERT: Yeah, and it goes like this. 

ROBERT: Once upon a time, he says, people were not born separate from each other, they were born entwined, kind of coupled with each other. So there were boys attached to boys, and there were girls attached to girls, and of course boys and girls together in a wonderfully intimate ball. And back then, we had eight limbs. There were four on top, four on the bottom, and you didn't have to walk if you didn't want to. You could roll. And roll we did. We rolled backwards and we rolled forwards, achieving fantastic speeds that gave us a kind of courage. And then the courage swelled to pride, and the pride became arrogance. And then we decided that we were greater than the gods, and we tried to roll up to heaven and take over heaven. And the gods, alarmed, struck back. And Zeus, in his fury, hurled down lightning bolts and struck everyone in two, into perfect halves. So all of a sudden, couples who'd been warm and tight and wedged together, were now detached and alone and lost and desperate and losing the will to live. And the gods, seeing what they've done, worried that humans might not survive or even multiply again.

ROBERT: And of course, they needed humans to give sacrifices and to pay attention to them. So the gods decided on a few repairs. Instead of heads facing backwards or out, they would rotate our heads back to forward. They pulled our skin taught and knotted it right here at the belly button. Genitalia too were moved to the front so if we wanted to, you know, we could. And most important, they left us with a memory. It was a longing for that original other half of ourselves, the boy or the girl who used to make us whole. And that longing is still so deep in all of us—men for men, women for women, men for women, for each other—that it has been the lot of humans ever since to travel the world looking for our other half. And when, says Aristophanes, when one of us meets another we recognize each other right away, we just know this, we're lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy. We won't get out of each other's sight even for a moment, these are people, he says, who pass their whole lives together and yet if you ask them, they could not explain what they desire of each other, they just do.

JAD: Very nice.

ROBERT: Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Oh!

[applause]

JAD: So here's the thing: that story got us started on a little journey, which really began just thinking about wholeness and oneness and halves looking for each other.

ROBERT:  In all varieties of ways.

JAD: Mirrors and shapes.

ROBERT: Relationships, beauty.

JAD: The birth of the universe, the nature of life.

ROBERT: All of these things either have a simple deep beauty ...

JAD: Or not. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: …this is Radiolab, and today, for this hour, we are desperately seeking ...

ROBERT: Symmetry.

JAD: ... symmetry. By the way, that was Zoë Keating on cello, we'll hear more from her throughout the hour because she's awesome. All right, Bobby K.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm?

JAD: I'm still thinking about Aristophanes.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: And do you ever wonder what actually happens when two people click, when the halves kind of meet?

ROBERT: Meaning what?

JAD: You know, you're going through your day, maybe you're at a party.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: You meet people and you're like, "Hey, how are you? How are you?" And they say something, they try and be interesting, and you try and be interesting back, but in the end you're like, "I don't need to remember that name."

ROBERT: Right, of course. Yeah.

JAD: Gone. Foom!

ROBERT: And then comes along somebody ...

JAD: Yeah, every hundred times, the stars align, the world falls away, things narrow, and you just click.

ROBERT: I know that.

JAD: But do you ever wonder what actually happens in that moment?

LAUREN SILBERT: Like, when you meet someone that you really get. I just—I don't think that there's anything that really feels better than that.

JAD: That's Lauren Silbert. She's a neuroscientist at Princeton. She wonders. She's been wondering for a while.

LAUREN SILBERT: When I was, I don't know, maybe eight, and I used to study with my dad, we would go over things. And I remember, like, I didn't understand this one, like, math problem, and he was explaining it to me, and all of a sudden I got it, and I started to cry. And he got really nervous because I was crying.

JAD: Why were you crying?

LAUREN SILBERT: Because I was so excited that I, like, finally got it. That's my first memory of really, like, being excited about the intensity of understanding.

JAD: So fast forward 20 years, Lauren is at Princeton, and in the basement of her building ...

JAD: Here, can you tell me where we are?

LAUREN SILBERT: We are in the fMRI facilities in Green Hall at Princeton University.

JAD: They've got this giant brain scanner.

ROBERT: Ooh!

JAD: Looks like an airplane engine.

ROBERT: More like a donut.

JAD: Yeah, you could go with donut. And as you know, with the scanner, you can put people in it and have them do tasks, think—think a thought or ...

ROBERT: Sing a song.

JAD: Sing a song, or watch a movie. And then the researchers can see into their brain, you know, without having to cut in there. And Lauren got it into her head, "Could I use this big donut to investigate the clicking question?"

JAD: So is the question when things click, what clicks?

LAUREN SILBERT: What clicks? And if we can know what clicks, can we learn how to make it click more?

JAD: So one day last year, Lauren got into the brain scanner ...

LAUREN SILBERT: I sort of like it in there.

JAD: ... and she told this story.

JAD: Can you just tell me that story?

LAUREN SILBERT: Well, it's a 15-minute ...

JAD: Come on!

LAUREN SILBERT: So—okay, so I told the story ...

JAD: Have I ever actually told you the whole thing?

LAUREN SILBERT: ... without any sort of rehearsal.

JAD: Fully?

ROBERT: I think maybe four—well, 27 times. Something—something under 30, under 30 times.

JAD: [laughs] I'm gonna tell it one more time for everybody else.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: Play along.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: So the story is about her prom. So Lauren is in high school, and this guy that she doesn't really like asks her to go to the prom.

ROBERT: Hmm.

LAUREN SILBERT: Pretty awkward.

JAD: But she's like ...

LAUREN SILBERT: Oh, okay.

JAD: You know, didn't know what to say. Now subsequent to being asked by the first guy, she actually falls for real for a second guy, guy number two. 

LAUREN SILBERT: We just liked each other. Clicked.

JAD: So now she has a situation because she likes the second guy, said yes to the first guy.

ROBERT: And he still wants to be the date, he wants to be her ...

JAD: Yeah, oddly enough, he still wants to go with her. So she ends up going with guy number one.

LAUREN SILBERT: So we get to the prom and ...

JAD: Guy number two, her boyfriend shows up drunk.

LAUREN SILBERT: Very drunk.

JAD: Punches fly, it gets messy. So she drags guy number two, her boyfriend, out to the parking lot ...

LAUREN SILBERT: But on the way to the car, he trips and falls directly on his face.

JAD: Right onto his face?

LAUREN SILBERT: Like, right onto his face.

JAD: On the concrete?

JAD: And he starts bleeding ...

ROBERT: [laughs]

LAUREN SILBERT: Bloody nose.

JAD: ... profusely. So she's like, "Oh, give me your keys, I'm gonna drive." 

LAUREN SILBERT: I'll drive your car.

JAD: And she doesn't have a license, but he can't drive.

LAUREN SILBERT: Right.

JAD: So she drives them both out of the parking lot. A couple minutes later, they come upon an accident.

ROBERT: In the—in the street?

JAD: Yeah, it's right there. Some cars had gotten into a thing. So they're rolling up to it ...

LAUREN SILBERT: I get distracted ...

JAD: ... and she crashes into the accident that had already happened.

ROBERT: [laughs]

LAUREN SILBERT: ... and I'm going very slowly, and it's just that the police were already there

and they, like, watched this.

JAD: So the officer walks up, sees her, no license, sees this dude who's all bloody and messy, and was like, "All right, give me your registration." She thinks she's going to jail, but here is where fate steps in. As the officer is walking back to his car with her registration, a wind ...

ROBERT: A lucky wind.

JAD: ... one of those, kicks up, blows the registration out of the officer's hands. He can't find it, and he has no choice but to let her go.

LAUREN SILBERT: So then I just left. So that was the story that forms the basis ...

JAD: Okay. That is the story that forms the basis of this project. Okay, so now let's rewind.

JAD: So anyhow, she told that story in the scanner, all the while the scanner snapped pictures of her brain moment to moment. Then she got a bunch of other people, put them in the scanner, and had the scanner snap pictures of their brains.

LAUREN SILBERT: As they're listening to the story.

JAD: You with me so far?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: Next, she compared brains.

LAUREN SILBERT: Okay. So here, I can show you.

JAD: Lauren showed us brain scans where she divided each brain into ...

LAUREN SILBERT: ... thousands ...

JAD: ... of tiny little squares.

LAUREN SILBERT: That we call voxels.

JAD: Thousands? 

LAUREN SILBERT: Thousands, yeah.

JAD: Oh.

LAUREN SILBERT: So then what we can do is we can take one voxel in one brain and directly compare it to the same exact voxel in the other brain.

JAD: Shut up! Wow!

LAUREN SILBERT: And we do this across the entire brain.

JAD: And this is where things get interesting. When people really got her story—because she'd run them through all these tests to see if they could remember the different chapters, the words she used ...

ROBERT: She was checking to see how well they listen?

JAD: Yeah, she would have them kind of recall the story.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: Some were really good at recalling, others not so much. Now the people that did well, like really well, she found that as they were listening to her story, their brain would literally begin to mirror hers. All the little voxels in their head would start to sync up with all the little voxels in her head.

ROBERT: So they're, so they're just listening like anyone listens. They're just hearing what you're saying. I get that.

JAD: No, no. Let me put it to you a different way: you're right, I mean right now, you and I, our voxels are mirroring each other.

ROBERT: Yeah, vaguely.

JAD: You know, like we're both speaking English.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: So we could assume, say 20 percent.

ROBERT: At least. I would go 23-24.

JAD: Let's say 24, okay? But let's say you bump it up to 30, maybe bump it up to 35. Let's get a little higher, 40, 42, 48, 49 ...

ROBERT: I've never understood you at a 50 percent level.

JAD: But let's say we get to 50 percent, even 60. There's a certain point at which something happens where it's no longer me just describing an experience to you, it's you actually having the experience, you know?

ROBERT: Ah, yeah.

JAD: Like, you know that the difference between explanation and experience is like the Grand Canyon, right?

ROBERT: Yes.

JAD: Well, she's found a way to quantify the gap.

ROBERT: So when I'm sitting there listening to Meryl Streep, I'm all Meryl inside, outside and all around. That's 100 percent Meryl. If you're listening, that's 100 percent Meryl Streep.

JAD: She is not listening to this. [laughs]

ROBERT: You were saying?

JAD: I'll give you an example of what I was just saying.

LAUREN SILBERT: Here, let me show you.

JAD: So while I was in Lauren's office, she showed me this particular slide of her results.

LAUREN SILBERT: So on this side, we have this comprehension rank, and what that means ... JAD: Basically, it was a graph, and on one axis she had how much they actually understood the story and could recall it, and on the other axis, she had how much their brain synced up with hers, which is sort of like how much they experience the story.

JAD: What are these marks, by the way? Are these people? 

LAUREN SILBERT: Yeah. No, sorry about the—wait. These—this is just background ...

JAD: The little Xs.

LAUREN SILBERT: Oh, these are individual subjects.

JAD: I see.

LAUREN SILBERT: So if you take out this one outlier, actually ...

JAD: She pointed to this one subject who was way on one side of the graph.

JAD: So that person is—just didn't get your story at all?

LAUREN SILBERT: No, this person ...

JAD: Actually did understand her story, scored really nice on comprehension, but just didn't sync up with her brain at all.

LAUREN SILBERT: This person—this person—well, so this is a—a little interesting tidbit. [laughs] I know this person.

JAD: You know this person.

LAUREN SILBERT:  I know this person, yeah.

JAD: So that person, I'm almost positive, is her fiance.

LAUREN SILBERT:  Yeah, it was—there were some fights.

JAD: In—in just, or for real?

LAUREN SILBERT:  I mean, for real. I don't think he was actually paying attention. But this one up here ...

JAD: She pointed to another subject all the way on the other side of the graph who was a super brain-coupling master.

LAUREN SILBERT: Was a girl, an undergrad who I had never met before, and her brain coupled with my brain was twice as much as everybody else. I mean, really, just like—I contacted her after because I wanted to, like, have lunch with her and just see if we're the same person or not.

JAD: And?

LAUREN SILBERT: And she never got back to me.

JAD: What?

LAUREN SILBERT: I know. Isn't that crazy?

JAD: Really?

LAUREN SILBERT: Mm-hmm. It was sort of the end of their semester, and I think she might have been away.

JAD: In the weeks after I spoke with Lauren, we emailed a few times and I kept asking her, I was like, "So what about that girl?"

ROBERT: The one who knew everything? Heard everything.

JAD: Yeah, who is she? Like, how do you explain the connection? Is it a connection? Let's go meet her! Come on, come on, come on!

ROBERT: She didn't want to.

JAD: No, she did, actually. And we started referring to the girl in email as "BD."

ROBERT: BD, meaning what?

JAD: Meaning "Brain Double." BD, BD, BD, BD, BD, BD, BD, double, double, double. Anyhow, eventually, after two weeks of constant emailing and searching, BD turns up and agrees to meet. The meeting took place on a sunny Tuesday afternoon at Princeton, and I missed it because I was on the wrong train. When I finally get there, BD had come and gone.

ROBERT: So you never laid eyes on BD?

JAD: I did not. But I talked to Lauren right after she had.

LAUREN SILBERT: It was weird.

JAD: Really?

JAD: We sat down on a bench, and she gave me the scoop.

JAD: Okay, you seem a little shaken.

LAUREN SILBERT:  Yeah, it was a strange experience.

JAD: First thing she tells me is that the mystery girl's name is her name.

LAUREN SILBERT: Lauren. My—my name as well.

JAD: She was Lauren and you were Lauren?

LAUREN SILBERT: Yes, we're both named Lauren.

JAD: Wow. I kind of almost ...

LAUREN SILBERT: I know, it's weird, but there are lots of Laurens out there.

JAD: I know, but still, that's so weird.

LAUREN SILBERT: I feel like ...

JAD: At this point, I'm like, I mean, this is like an Aristophanes whopper here, folks.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: That's what I was thinking, and that's what Lauren told me that she had been expecting, too ...

LAUREN SILBERT: Yeah.

JAD: ... beforehand.

LAUREN SILBERT: I was expecting her to come in and just like be me.

JAD: And when she showed up, was she you?

LAUREN SILBERT: No, not at all.

LAUREN #2: Yeah.

JAD: Earlier, they had met at a coffee shop, and since I'd missed the whole thing, I was very lucky that Lauren number one had recorded the meeting on her laptop.

LAUREN SILBERT: Okay, so I want to know, did you—where did you grow up?

LAUREN #2: I grew up in Vancouver, BC.

LAUREN SILBERT: In Vancouver?

LAUREN #2: Yeah.

JAD: Lauren One's theory was that they would have a common background, or a common something that would explain this symmetry between them, but what you hear is Lauren One looking for points of connection. And, well, listen ...

LAUREN SILBERT: Okay, do you have prom in Canada? Is that a stupid question?

LAUREN #2: Well, we do. I actually couldn't go to mine.

LAUREN SILBERT: You didn't go to your prom?

LAUREN #2: Yeah.

LAUREN SILBERT: Okay.

LAUREN #2: I wish I could have.

LAUREN SILBERT: Did you—did you have, like, significant relationships in high school?

LAUREN #2: No.

LAUREN SILBERT: No, not at all.

LAUREN #2: I went to an all-girls school, so ...

LAUREN SILBERT: You went to an all-girls school? Did you have to wear uniforms?

LAUREN #2: Yeah.

LAUREN SILBERT: Was it like Catholic?

JAD: In the end, there was not one thing they had in common, except their names and Princeton.

ROBERT: You thought that this was going to be, you know ...

JAD: Something. I don't know.

ROBERT: Maybe your premise is wrong?

JAD: What do you mean?

ROBERT: Well actually, I snuck up to Columbia University and I asked a neuroscientist about this.

JAD: When did you do that?

ROBERT: While you were in Princeton, I was on the subway going up to see Joy Hirsch.

ROBERT: Hi.

JOY HIRSCH: Hi. Nice to meet you.

JAD: What? You went behind my back?

ROBERT: What happened is I said to her, "Look, we have this pretty great paper." And she agreed it was a wonderful paper. I said, "It shows these two women who seem to be in such lockstep. Wouldn't you suppose that the two of them, if they ever met, would become friendly?" 

JAD: Or have some connection?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JOY HIRSCH: Would you come to the same conclusion if yours and my heartbeats were exactly the same?

ROBERT: Depends on the circumstances. If it was a beautiful night and a sinking moon in Venice, maybe. [laughs]

JOY HIRSCH: If—you have elaborated the story beyond my question. Say your heartbeat is about 62 beats per minute, say mine was exactly 62 beats per minute, would you say that we were more in sync than if mine was 72 beats per minute, that you and I were more soulmates?

ROBERT: No, probably not. I'd want to, but I don't know if I—you see, I would want to. Don't you want to when you see synchrony between individuals?

JOY HIRSCH: Well—well, yes, but I'm saying that I think that the conclusion doesn't follow from the data.

ROBERT: Joy says it's equally possible that ... 

JOY HIRSCH: …Lauren #2 is just an extraordinarily good listener.

JAD: Hello?

LAUREN #2: Hey. Hey, can you hear me okay?

JAD: Yeah. yeah, I can hear you.

JAD: In fact, when I finally got Lauren #2 on the phone, she did tell me that she is one of those people that when she hears a story, she just falls in.

LAUREN #2: To the point where somebody can be like, "Lauren! Lauren!" And I don't hear it because I'm so focused on the book.

JAD: Yeah.

LAUREN: How do I explain it? So have you ever done any sports?

JAD: Soccer, a little bit, yeah.

LAUREN #2: Do you ever find that sometimes when you're playing soccer, you are so into the game and just reacting or whatever that you kind of lose track of yourself for a little bit?

JAD: Yeah, it's like a dream state almost.

LAUREN #2: Yeah, like a dream state. I definitely have that happen when I'm doing sports, but I also sometimes have that happen when I read.

JAD: Even so, do you think that you and Lauren One will become friends?

LAUREN #2: Um, I honestly probably not.

LAUREN SILBERT: No.

JAD: No.

LAUREN SILBERT: I mean, we're just—it just—I just don't—I wouldn't—I wouldn't. I just wouldn't.

JAD: [laughs] But she's you, but not you. Don't you want to hang out with her? Don't you need to know her?

LAUREN SILBERT: I want to follow her path, but ...

ROBERT: Okay, Jad. Thank you, thank you very much. Why don't you just sit down just for a second? We're going to play a little soft—I think we can just repair all the damage that has just occurred to your sensitive psyche. Just listen and we'll be right back.

LAUREN SILBERT: Hi, this is Lauren.

LAUREN #2: Hey, this is Lauren.

LAUREN SILBERT: Radiolab is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

LAUREN #2: Enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

LAUREN SILBERT: More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.

LAUREN #2: Radiolab is produced by WNYC and distributed by NPR.

LAUREN SILBERT: Thanks. Okay, bye.

LAUREN #2: Bye.

 

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