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00:00:09.240Welcome to "Quantum Potential," a podcast dedicated to curiosity, discovery and the bold new ideas shaping our future.
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00:00:12.810I'm Cybele Raver, provost of Vanderbilt University.
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00:00:26.370Today's conversation brings together themes that are at the very core of my values as a leader and at the intersection of scholarship and lived experience.
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00:00:34.545We're exploring how individuals and organizations can cultivate meaning, purpose and the conditions that allow human potential to flourish.
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00:00:39.674Why does this matter as we define what universities must become in the 21st century?
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00:00:48.375Universities are places where knowledge advances, but they're also places where individuals grow, reflect and chart their paths forward.
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00:00:58.844I think about this often in my role as Vanderbilt's chief academic Officer, where I help shape both our academic direction and the social and residential life that defines our community.
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00:01:07.185That dual responsibility makes today's conversation especially meaningful—for our Vanderbilt community and for me, personally, as a leader in higher education.
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00:01:23.534And that is why I am so delighted to welcome you, Arthur Brooks, a thought leader, scholar, bestselling author and professor, and a person who hosts an incredibly popular podcast, by the way, whose work explores the science of happiness, leadership and human flourishing.
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00:01:27.734Arthur's career has been nothing short of extraordinary.
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00:01:32.144He served on the faculties of both Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School.
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00:01:38.234He holds a Ph.D. in public policy analysis and has earned both graduate and undergraduate degrees in economics.
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00:01:45.405He previously led of one of Washington's most influential think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute, as its president.
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00:01:51.135He's a prolific and influential voice in the national conversation about success and well-being.
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00:02:02.743Arthur has delivered more than 3,000 lectures—which if you can just think about that, that is just amazing— around the world and authored 13 books, including five national bestsellers.
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00:02:09.944He's profoundly shaped how we think about achievement, purpose and happiness, and we are so honored to welcome you, Arthur.
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00:02:10.754Thank you, Cybele.
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00:02:15.884I'm also thrilled to share that you'll soon be joining Vanderbilt as a member of our faculty.
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00:02:17.400I'm thrilled about that, too, I can't wait.
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00:02:17.599So awesome.
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00:02:19.054Incredible.
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00:02:19.834Yeah, this is, this is the place to be.
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00:02:21.334Thank you so much and welcome.
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00:02:21.995I can't wait.
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00:02:22.564Thank you.
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00:02:23.194Great.
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00:02:25.924So let's begin with your research and your writing.
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00:02:35.495You've spent years studying happiness as something measurable and teachable. Not something simply that we think about in philosophical terms, but truly grounded in science.
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00:02:44.155Which as a developmental psychologist who studies, you know, neuroendocrine function, I just love that you're bringing affective neuroscience to that discussion.
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00:02:49.074For listeners encountering this work for the first time, how do you define happiness?
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00:02:52.884What do people most often misunderstand about happiness?
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00:02:53.185Yeah.
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00:02:55.435Happiness is something that everybody wants.
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00:02:59.069Not everybody acts like they want it, but, but, but people want to be happier.
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00:03:01.819And that's something that philosophers have been talking about forever.
00:03:02.090 -->
00:03:06.500The trouble is the thing that we most want seems like the thing that we actually can't get.
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00:03:11.659And that paradox itself has actually been the center of a lot of theology, for example.
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00:03:23.689So, so religions that believe that there's a great and blissful afterlife will say that evidence of that afterlife of heaven is the fact that we want something and we feel like we can get it, but we can't get it here.
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00:03:27.740So it's sort of like thirst is evidence of the existence of water.
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00:03:28.639So fascinating.
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00:03:39.650But, but it, it's only been recently that the, the merging of theology and philosophy, but also with modern neuroscience and behavioral science, that we've been able to, to quantify what these ideas are.
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00:03:42.919And, and, and that's what's been the most exciting thing in my career.
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00:03:50.330I mean, I, I'm a behavioral scientist by background, um, studying mostly how people interact with government and behave in weird ways as citizens.
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00:03:55.069But I realized along the way as I got a little bit older, that I wanted to study what was most important to me.
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00:03:59.275And, and I needed to retrain in areas that I didn't have an academic background.
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00:04:09.174So I went back to study more neuroscience and more philosophy, and that gave me a thrilling intellectual background that I, or to, to retool my skill set in ways that are so exciting.
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00:04:20.365And, and I realized that in so doing, we could kind of triangulate across these different literatures to illuminate more about the, the secrets of human happiness beyond what anybody would've even thought of 50 years ago.
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00:04:20.634Yeah.
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00:04:22.045It's an interesting time.
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00:04:23.634It's an exciting time.
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00:04:30.504Everybody's talking about AI and, and, and, and you know, vaccines— and the real vanguard is human happiness.
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00:04:31.555So great.
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00:04:49.283And I love to just open up for a minute, the point that you made early, that idea of allowing ourselves to be happy. Is that because we place achievement on one end of continuum and happiness on another, and there's some virtue to the notion of the grind of suffering?
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00:04:53.245Well, there's, it is true— and one of the great misunderstandings that we have about happiness.
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00:04:55.404And then back to your original question, what do we get wrong about it?
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00:04:56.425We think it's a feeling.
00:04:57.144 -->
00:04:58.584Happiness isn't an emotion.
00:04:58.884 -->
00:05:03.473Emotions are evidence of happiness, like the smell of your turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner.
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00:05:09.454Um, and so understanding that ... that happiness is something more tangible than that, that has sort of macronutrients.
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00:05:17.163Um, so I talk an awful lot about the elements of that, but also that it's more of a direction than a destination, at least in this life, depending on your ... on your views.
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00:05:19.954Um, that's an important thing to keep in mind as well.
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00:05:26.529People make other mistakes about it that have everything to do with our, our biological evolutionary tendencies.
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00:05:43.449So one of the biggest mistakes that that people who are strivers—you know, hardworking people, successful people—make is that they believe, because Mother Nature has kind of programmed us to believe, that if we have enough worldly success, money, power, honor, that happiness will come for free, and that's quite wrong.
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00:05:51.079And so one of the biggest mistakes of the most high-achieving people in the world is that they think that if they get roley success, happiness will come for free.
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00:05:55.038The first thing I tell my classes who are, they're the leaders of tomorrow...
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00:05:55.399Right.
00:05:55.490 -->
00:05:58.728...is that you need to shoot for happiness and then you'll be successful enough.
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00:06:02.329And of course, for strivers, what makes them panic is that last word "enough."
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00:06:02.990Yes.
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00:06:04.964And so the whole secret is figuring out what that means.
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00:06:09.259Yeah, I mean that whole notion of delaying gratification, delaying...
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00:06:09.620Right.
00:06:09.709 -->
00:06:16.189...you know, that it's a consequence rather than a correlate or something that travels alongside or even drives success, right?
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00:06:16.850Absolutely.
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00:06:24.410And you know, it's an interesting thing because we—people who work their whole lives to be special rather than happy—they wind up becoming really, really miserable.
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00:06:26.560And that's not how I want my students to wind up.
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00:06:26.800Yeah.
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00:06:27.399Yeah.
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00:06:33.759And I think you gave a great set of antidotes to the notion that worry is something that we just have to shoulder.
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00:06:34.029Yeah.
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00:06:34.480Right?
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00:06:36.040You wanna talk a little bit about worry?
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00:06:38.019I love that idea that—what was it?
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00:06:43.915I think you said in somewhere in the middle of the book that 91 percent of the things that we worry about don't ever come to pass.
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00:06:44.620That's right.
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00:06:45.129That's right.
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00:06:50.680So what ... a lot of people struggle with anxiety and stress and worry and, and, and they're all related to fear.
00:06:51.218 -->
00:06:53.589Fear is a, is a basic negative emotion.
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00:06:58.389The, the basic negative emotions, the fundamental negative emotions are fear, anger, disgust and sadness.
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00:06:59.740And they all exist for a reason.
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00:07:05.348And interestingly, the human limbic system, this console of tissues between 2 [million] and 40 million years ago, it predates homo sapiens.
00:07:05.769 -->
00:07:13.779It exists to, to turn signals that we get below our level of consciousness into emotions, which are the human language that we can understand.
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00:07:15.879Negative emotions exist for a reason.
00:07:15.879 -->
00:07:18.098There are signals that there we have perceived a threat.
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00:07:18.805That's what it comes down to.
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00:07:18.894Yeah.
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00:07:21.954I love that you had inhibition and activation that you know the...
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00:07:22.033Oh, yeah.
00:07:22.033 -->
00:07:23.935Well that's the, the prefrontal cortex.
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00:07:23.944Exactly.
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00:07:27.625Human gets like, its whole job is saying "don't do that."
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00:07:29.245Withdraw.
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00:07:29.574Yeah.
00:07:29.694 -->
00:07:32.663So, you know, it's like the, the, the, the prefrontal cortex is the C-suite.
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00:07:38.384That's where the, the provost of your brain sits, which is the behavioral inhibition system of a university...
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00:07:38.954Indeed.
00:07:39.079 -->
00:07:43.334...is the provost, and then the chancellor's the behavioral activation system.
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00:07:43.740You know.
00:07:44.024 -->
00:07:45.644We try to share both...
00:07:45.675 -->
00:07:47.595You're Biss, and Daniel's Bass.
00:07:47.774 -->
00:07:50.985...and we try really hard to balance, but I get your, I get your metaphor.
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00:07:51.375It's working.
00:07:51.375 -->
00:07:55.814And then of course, the signals that are coming through the limbic system and its wild emotions are, are us, the faculty.
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00:07:56.220You know?
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00:07:57.660Think about it that way.
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00:08:01.754Well, I mean, you know, I think it's that fascinating idea, right?
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00:08:11.084That seize the moment, seize the day, seize ... seize the opportunity, often requires tamping down that inhibition...
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00:08:11.129Yeah, yeah.
00:08:11.129 -->
00:08:13.728...the worry, the... the concern, right?
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00:08:13.754Yeah.
00:08:13.810 -->
00:08:15.283And that, and actually getting more toward activation.
00:08:15.283 -->
00:08:19.423It's interesting because some people, what they find is they're too inhibited, and some people find that're too active.
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00:08:27.944People who have, um, neurodegenerative diseases or, or, or, or they've had some sort of brain pathology where their behavioral inhibition system is damaged.
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00:08:28.154Yeah.
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00:08:29.923That's the primary job.
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00:08:34.134Of, of making sure that you're not doing things, that you don't get yourself into trouble.
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00:08:40.283And this is, you know, people who are, for example, people who suffer from psychosis, often they don't have a functioning behavioral inhibition system.
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00:08:40.615Yeah.
00:08:40.705 -->
00:08:44.304Or the, you know, uh, work hard, play hard, right?
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00:08:44.634Yeah.
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00:08:46.254Playing a little too hard can have
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00:09:02.355I've actually studying that a little bit and you'll be interested in this because what you find is that people who are interested in extreme sports, they take really a lot of risks. And what what we find is that they have different amygdalae than the rest of us. You've seen this research?
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00:09:13.695Right, so you find that people, if their amygdala is, is, is too, is literally too big, not too big, bigger than average, then it'll be activated really easily, and they have a hair trigger and they have to work on their temper and that anger management problems.
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00:09:18.320But if it's too small or if it's underactive, then they can't feel anything.
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00:09:18.409Yes.
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00:09:20.899And so they'll do crazy things and take crazy risks.
00:09:20.899 -->
00:09:21.335You have to jump.
00:09:21.830 -->
00:09:24.409You gotta do that because you're not gonna feel alive until, until ...
00:09:24.409 -->
00:09:27.860... you jump without a parachute off that thing or whatever happens to be, right?
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00:09:28.940Totally fascinating.
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00:09:29.240Yeah,
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00:09:42.943And I think a lot about the ways in which institutions like ours that expect so much of our students, right?
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00:09:49.875We have really a wonderful community that goes big and goes hard for things that are difficult.
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00:09:50.154Right.
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00:09:59.304This idea, I think you quote, um, President Kennedy at one point in the book about many people really like to do something because it's hard, not because it's easy, right?
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00:09:59.919Yeah, that's right.
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00:10:09.264But in the course of doing that, do we end up leaning a little too much on the worry end of the spectrum or the inhibitory control end of the spectrum?
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00:10:10.254Defer, right?
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00:10:10.735Yeah.
00:10:10.735 -->
00:10:16.815And I love that you encourage everybody to schedule time to explore or to be
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00:10:18.975Mm-hmm.
00:10:19.230 -->
00:10:20.894...rest or to laugh.
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00:10:20.955Yeah.
00:10:20.955 -->
00:10:26.264That there's room and in fact it's paramount to make that case.
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00:10:26.325Yeah.
00:10:26.955 -->
00:10:31.815I've been working a lot on the essence of leisure of late, and part of the reason is because I'm bad at it ...
00:10:32.063 -->
00:10:32.964You're bad at leisure.
00:10:32.964 -->
00:10:33.054...I'm bad at leisure.
00:10:33.054 -->
00:10:34.644You're bad at being a loafer.
00:10:34.644 -->
00:10:34.914I'm bad at leisure.
00:10:34.914 -->
00:10:35.094Yeah, no.
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00:10:36.144No, absolutely.
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00:10:38.365And, and, and the reason is because I didn't understand leisure properly.
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00:10:40.948And so, um, so lately I've been going back to the ...
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00:10:41.669Arthur Brooks.
00:10:41.669 -->
00:10:41.828I know.
00:10:41.889 -->
00:10:43.309Expert at flaking out.
00:10:43.309 -->
00:10:43.509Yeah.
00:10:43.750 -->
00:10:44.068I can see that doesn't really...
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00:10:45.953It's like, oh, I need to become a slacker.
00:10:45.953 -->
00:10:47.784I mean, I learning to learn to be a slacker.
00:10:47.784 -->
00:10:56.453And, and, and, you know, I tell my students, you know, I'll say, I'll talk to them about the necessity of actually finding some integration between their work and their, and the rest of their lives.
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00:11:06.629And they'll be like, "You want us to be slackers." I'll say,"There's nothing I could tell you that would make you into slackers." Strivers are born is what it comes down to, but, and I'm a classic striver, and so are you.
00:11:07.349 -->
00:11:15.839The trouble with that is that it's all points on the board and then, and then there's this arrival fallacy that we get into, and there's a lot of problems with happiness for this.
00:11:16.169 -->
00:11:18.568So I've gone back to the work of Josef Pieper lately.
00:11:18.568 -->
00:11:18.659Mm-hmm.
00:11:18.659 -->
00:11:30.210I've been reading a lot of Josef Pieper. And his most influential book was "Leisure, the Basis of Culture" written in his, in the, the after the, the middle of the 20th century.
00:11:25.230 -->
00:11:32.100And Pieper talks about what leisure really means. And, and we get it wrong today.
00:11:32.309 -->
00:11:37.289So we think of what leisure as he would call "acedia," which in ancient Greek is this laziness.
00:11:37.350 -->
00:11:37.529Hmm.
00:11:37.710 -->
00:11:38.669You know, sloth.
00:11:38.850 -->
00:11:39.120Yeah.
00:11:39.210 -->
00:11:40.289And that's not right.
00:11:40.289 -->
00:11:42.629He says that leisure's a serious business.
00:11:42.690 -->
00:11:48.389You don't get paid for it, but it's a kind of a self-improvement in more or less three realms, learning new things,...
00:11:48.720 -->
00:11:48.840Great.
00:11:48.870 -->
00:11:52.320...building relationships and deepening spiritual ideas.
00:11:52.559 -->
00:12:04.198And so becoming more philosophically or spiritually deeper, getting closer to your family and friends— or, or anybody for that matter— and, and, and paying attention to your learning and, and not doing it for money.
00:12:04.559 -->
00:12:05.549It's not doing it for fame.
00:12:05.730 -->
00:12:08.068Great. Sounds like being highly focused and highly attentive.
00:12:08.073 -->
00:12:09.179Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:09.179 -->
00:12:10.259Highly, just very alive.
00:12:10.259 -->
00:12:12.179And that's just, it's just really great.
00:12:12.240 -->
00:12:12.299Yeah.
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00:12:27.485I have to say, and that's a wonderful thing, and that's one of the roles that we can actually play in the university and the ongoing life of students and the communities that we have, is that we can help them participate in a life that has not just the daily grind, but actually has leisure properly understood.
00:12:27.485 -->
00:12:30.605And that's how I'm trying to learn how to have a leisure life that's better too.
00:12:30.664 -->
00:12:31.565No, it's great.
00:12:31.565 -->
00:12:44.674So I, I guess one question since you say, you claim that you know that you weren't good at leisure, um, I would imagine you might claim that you hadn't really gotten a close bead on ... on happiness early.
00:12:44.705 -->
00:12:45.850Yeah, happiness is hard for me.
00:12:46.440 -->
00:12:47.190That's why I studied it
00:12:47.250 -->
00:12:48.299What drew you to it?
00:12:48.360 -->
00:12:48.750Right?
00:12:48.840 -->
00:12:49.080Right?
00:12:49.080 -->
00:12:49.169What drew...
00:12:49.230 -->
00:12:50.460Precisely.
00:12:49.230 -->
00:12:50.460Because it's hard for me.
00:12:50.460 -->
00:12:50.519Yeah.
00:12:50.519 -->
00:12:56.490And when I started looking at the studies that the Minnesota researchers were looking at identical twins, you know, the identical twin studies.
00:12:56.490 -->
00:12:56.549Yeah.
00:12:56.549 -->
00:13:02.323Separated at birth and and reunited as adults. Identical twins that were adopted into separate families.
00:13:02.323 -->
00:13:05.534Because this is a practically, it's a, I mean it's a quasi-experimental way to
00:13:05.534 -->
00:13:07.453Yeah, there were great 1970s...
00:13:07.485 -->
00:13:07.693Yeah.
00:13:07.693 -->
00:13:09.129...TV shows about this.
00:13:09.129 -->
00:13:09.289Fantastic.
00:13:09.289 -->
00:13:10.214There's a great documentary.
00:13:10.214 -->
00:13:15.284But of course there's gonna be, um, social scientists like me and you with clipboards following them around, you know, collecting data.
00:13:15.284 -->
00:13:15.524Totally.
00:13:15.943 -->
00:13:28.568And what you find is that 40 to 80% of all their personality traits are genetic, which none of us wants, but, you know, too bad. And happiness is so somewhere between, you know, low forties and high 50% of happiness is genetic.
00:13:28.568 -->
00:13:32.200Your baseline, you know how you wake up most days.
00:13:32.200 -->
00:13:35.438I mean, some people they wake up, they're like, "It's a great day," right?
00:13:35.438 -->
00:13:35.934Right. What is it ...
00:13:36.375 -->
00:13:36.735They're annoying. You know.
00:13:36.735 -->
00:13:37.014"Thursday's Child"?
00:13:37.375 -->
00:13:37.615Yeah, I know.
00:13:37.754 -->
00:13:38.575You know, all of those.
00:13:38.740 -->
00:13:42.970But you know, for the rest of us it's like gratitude, you know, gratitude.
00:13:42.970 -->
00:13:53.230And I remember seeing that and thinking, "Okay, you know, my mother did make me unhappy" or you know, the—my mother was great—but the point is, I had gloomy parents.
00:13:53.529 -->
00:13:54.759Characterologically you're saying that
00:13:54.970 -->
00:13:55.029Yeah.
00:13:55.029 -->
00:13:59.169...and gloomy grandparents and, and, and all right.
00:13:59.230 -->
00:14:05.649And you know, I married a Spaniard who's a sunny person and she said, "like, you know, you're a behavioral scientist.
00:14:05.649 -->
00:14:08.470Why aren't you using your Ph.D.
00:14:05.649 -->
00:14:11.169for something really, truly useful, like your own happiness?" And, and she had a point.
00:14:11.769 -->
00:14:12.639She had a point.
00:14:13.000 -->
00:14:14.980And so in my mid-fifties I actually stepped back.
00:14:14.980 -->
00:14:25.475I was running this big think tank and I dedicated my, the rest of my life to actually retraining, as I mentioned before, mostly, to add, to update my tool kit as a, as a social scientist.
00:14:25.565 -->
00:14:25.654Right.
00:14:25.654 -->
00:14:35.554Um, with the modern neuroscience that really shows us how much of psychology really is biological. That psychology is biology in this very beautiful way.
00:14:35.735 -->
00:14:35.914Yeah.
00:14:35.914 -->
00:14:41.735And then marrying it up with, uh, with the wisdom traditions and, but especially the philosophy that I had never studied before.
00:14:41.764 -->
00:14:41.884Yeah.
00:14:41.884 -->
00:14:53.583But what's so great is that I find your work is suggesting that while that genetic component is real, that there is so many action steps that we can take to shape our physiological...
00:14:53.615 -->
00:14:53.855Yeah.
00:14:53.914 -->
00:14:59.914...responses to our environment, our ways in which we experience our day, our, our community.
00:14:59.975 -->
00:15:00.034Yeah.
00:15:00.034 -->
00:15:01.024Our work, right?
00:15:01.083 -->
00:15:01.323Yeah.
00:15:01.323 -->
00:15:07.828And when you know your tendencies, if you know your biological proclivities, then you, then you can tailor your habits appropriately.
00:15:07.828 -->
00:15:13.318I mean, it's like the, the, the data, for example, are very clear that about half of your tendency to abuse alcohol—genetic.
00:15:13.799 -->
00:15:23.099But if you say, "Hey, you know, both my parents are drunks, and all four of my grandparents and you know, my great-grandfather was a bootlegger" and I don't know, you know, where the story we're in Tennessee, so I'm trying to make it local.
00:15:23.458 -->
00:15:26.563And uh, and it was, and then you say, "So I'm doomed.
00:15:27.100 -->
00:15:29.259I'm gonna drink too much." I say, well, nah, no, no, no, no, no.
00:15:29.259 -->
00:15:33.639I got a special technique for turning that genetic tendency to zero.
00:15:33.639 -->
00:15:34.779It's called not drinking.
00:15:34.840 -->
00:15:35.198Yes.
00:15:35.259 -->
00:15:39.549And, and so the more you know about what your tendencies are, the better you can be with your habits.
00:15:39.549 -->
00:15:43.809And, and this is the beautiful thing about having this wonderful prefrontal cortex.
00:15:44.259 -->
00:15:47.559I mean, my dog's prefrontal cortex is wafer-thin.
00:15:47.620 -->
00:15:56.995And that means when his limbic system— which is pretty similar to mine, by the way, he has emotions too—say you know"be mad" or, or, or, or "show love,"
00:15:56.995 -->
00:15:58.254Yes.
00:15:58.254 -->
00:16:02.575He lives in the space of his animal impulses, but I can actually choose my moral aspirations.
00:16:02.815 -->
00:16:05.004That's what this supercomputer allows me to do.
00:16:05.004 -->
00:16:05.065Yeah.
00:16:05.274 -->
00:16:08.424And but that requires knowledge, and that requires habits.
00:16:08.424 -->
00:16:12.475And that's why the life of the mind is so, so exciting actually.
00:16:12.475 -->
00:16:13.014Deeply thrilling.
00:16:13.225 -->
00:16:13.524Exactly.
00:16:13.529 -->
00:16:15.264That's just the biggest adventure ever.
00:16:15.384 -->
00:16:16.044Totally.
00:16:16.779 -->
00:16:29.828I wanted to ask you a little bit, given that you're an award-winning columnist for "The Atlantic" and "The Washington Post," how it's been to put out these weekly newsletters. And I just thought I'd kick it off with one that I especially loved.
00:16:29.828 -->
00:16:35.649You recently had a piece about how we might all relax a little around Bad Bunny's halftime show for the Super Bowl.
00:16:36.009 -->
00:16:36.764I just loved it.
00:16:36.764 -->
00:16:41.708You're, you're, you texted me or you emailed me about that one that you actually liked that one. That was controversial.
00:16:41.948 -->
00:16:44.828Well, you drew on really fascinating psychological
00:16:44.828 -->
00:16:46.269Yeah.
00:16:46.269 -->
00:16:47.169And belonging.
00:16:47.559 -->
00:16:56.438And particularly about how monolingual English speakers can sometimes feel anxious or excluded, um, when they're in a setting where other people are speaking a different language.
00:16:56.438 -->
00:16:58.509I think any one of us has experienced this, right?
00:16:58.509 -->
00:17:08.349Where that research shows that not understanding what's being said around us can trigger real feelings of discomfort or even threat, um, that sense of "What am I missing?
00:17:08.349 -->
00:17:12.130Am I outside of the circle?" But then you totally flip the script.
00:17:12.130 -->
00:17:22.450You tell this incredibly great personal story that when you were 24 as a young musician playing a, in a brass quintet in France, you met your, the woman who was gonna become your wife.
00:17:22.809 -->
00:17:36.595Um, this beautiful audience member, you know, from Barcelona who spoke only Catalan, and this way in which it became exciting and funny and awkward and romantic and full of possibility to not know, right? Arthur: Mm.
00:17:36.595 -->
00:17:40.519That not knowing is actually this spark of... Arthur: Mm-hmm.
00:17:40.700 -->
00:17:44.035...and thrill of, um, exploration or curiosity.
00:17:44.184 -->
00:17:44.335Right.
00:17:44.335 -->
00:17:53.505Of course I love that because I think of it so much, uh, as the foundation of discovery, which is really about what I think a lot of university life is about.
00:17:53.505 -->
00:17:55.964Research involves not knowing, right?
00:17:55.964 -->
00:17:55.974Right.
00:17:56.265 -->
00:18:01.214But it also is really at the heart of our emphasis on Dialogue Vanderbilt, right?
00:18:01.214 -->
00:18:01.224Right.
00:18:01.454 -->
00:18:07.305What is it that I will learn and that I do not yet know by engaging with you, right?
00:18:07.424 -->
00:18:07.964Completely.
00:18:07.994 -->
00:18:20.265No, I completely, and it's, this is a great example. It's one of the big reasons I'm here at Vanderbilt. Because Vanderbilt has this commitment to, to seeing difference as a source of adventure— even ideological difference.
00:18:20.265 -->
00:18:20.325Yeah.
00:18:20.474 -->
00:18:30.164I mean, it's funny because we all talk about diversity and we all talk about difference, but the right kind. Like, like not the kind we don't like, like people who differ from us politically.
00:18:30.194 -->
00:18:30.255Yeah.
00:18:30.255 -->
00:18:31.305God forbid, right?
00:18:31.305 -->
00:18:36.045But, but Vanderbilt takes this seriously, and I love that because the whole point is that when we...
00:18:36.349 -->
00:18:45.888when we model that as, as scholars, when we model that as academics, of being just thrilled by hearing weird, dangerous stuff. Like, bring it on!
00:18:45.888 -->
00:18:45.949Yeah.
00:18:45.949 -->
00:18:47.509Like, I want more dangerous ideas.
00:18:47.509 -->
00:18:49.490I want to feel ideologically unsafe.
00:18:49.490 -->
00:18:50.539That's why I'm here.
00:18:50.599 -->
00:18:50.750Yeah.
00:18:50.990 -->
00:18:54.019And when people, when young people see that, they say,"Oh, oh, that's an adventure."
00:18:54.109 -->
00:18:54.289Yeah.
00:18:54.289 -->
00:18:57.679Discomfort is actually the place we're heading for in...
00:18:57.949 -->
00:18:58.009Yeah, I know.
00:18:58.009 -->
00:18:58.819...a great way, right?
00:18:58.819 -->
00:19:06.960That was kind of the essence of the, I mean, I'm no, you know, Summer of Love hippie, you know, of Berkeley in '67 or whatever it was.
00:19:06.960 -->
00:19:09.119But the free speech movement was kind of like that.
00:19:09.119 -->
00:19:11.069It's like, "Bring it on. Say weird things."
00:19:11.160 -->
00:19:11.339Yeah.
00:19:11.369 -->
00:19:12.839You got some controversial opinion?
00:19:12.839 -->
00:19:15.119I'm gonna sit down next to you and kind of figure it out.
00:19:15.119 -->
00:19:18.420And that's the essence of being a social science researcher, isn't it?
00:19:19.099 -->
00:19:19.609Totally.
00:19:19.609 -->
00:19:27.769You know, when I talk, talk to my students about going home for Thanksgiving and Aunt Marge is gonna be at Thanksgiving and she's got, she's gonna talk about Trump or something.
00:19:27.769 -->
00:19:33.529I, it's like, like "Pretend you're, you know, Margaret Mead." You know, "Pretend you're doing an ethnographic study.
00:19:34.128 -->
00:19:34.219Right.
00:19:34.219 -->
00:19:35.449It's an anthropological moment.
00:19:35.449 -->
00:19:35.625And just be like, "That's so interesting.
00:19:35.654 -->
00:19:37.819Tell me, why do you think that? Tell me more."
00:19:37.934 -->
00:19:38.224Yeah.
00:19:38.479 -->
00:19:48.079And that's the essence of what it means to be fully alive and, and, and to be participating in the competition of ideas, which is fundamental to a free society, but it's fundamental to an exciting life.
00:19:56.255 -->
00:20:06.484We all love to talk, especially those of us who host podcasts, but is language just a tool we use to communicate or is it something much more powerful?
00:20:06.904 -->
00:20:12.454How does language impact politics, identity access, and evolving technology?
00:20:13.125 -->
00:20:22.994Join me in our next episode as Akshya Saxena, associate professor of English at Vanderbilt, and I dig into the fascinating history and future of language.
00:20:23.773 -->
00:20:26.294But first, let's get back to my conversation with Arthur.
00:20:30.523 -->
00:20:43.244I think it's great to hear you say that it's fundamental to being alive, and I wonder how much you've been thinking about whether it's also fundamental to being human in a time when AI knows everything, right?
00:20:43.244 -->
00:20:49.650The sense that actually it's not that we're being outpaced, it's that it's no longer exciting.
00:20:50.009 -->
00:20:50.039Mm.
00:20:50.190 -->
00:20:54.420What's your take on this sense of this deluge... Arthur: Yeah.
00:20:54.420 -->
00:20:59.130...of information where, um, knowing versus not knowing, novelty versus... Arthur: I
00:20:59.130 -->
00:21:02.659...familiarity becomes so brightly foregrounded.
00:21:02.659 -->
00:21:02.719Yeah.
00:21:02.779 -->
00:21:12.709There we've been always surrounded by questions of "why," but also questions of "how to" and "what," and we've accommodated ourselves to, to trying to find the answers to all these types of questions.
00:21:12.709 -->
00:21:17.775And now we have tools that are really, really good at answering questions, but not all of 'em.
00:21:18.224 -->
00:21:22.634What AI is really good at is answering the "how to" and "what" questions of life...
00:21:22.640 -->
00:21:22.779Yeah.
00:21:22.994 -->
00:21:25.244...and horrible at the "why" questions of life.
00:21:25.275 -->
00:21:25.335Yeah.
00:21:25.755 -->
00:21:29.144Humans are the only, we're the only ones that can,
00:21:29.144 -->
00:21:31.214We're gonna hold onto that, that portion of the, the,
00:21:31.214 -->
00:21:32.355but that's the life in life.
00:21:32.384 -->
00:21:32.535Yeah.
00:21:32.565 -->
00:21:34.005That's really where the life in life is.
00:21:34.005 -->
00:21:43.095I do a lot of work on hemispheric lateralization, you know, Iain McGilchrist's work from Oxford who talks about the fact that when, when you and I were kids, we always thought there was hemispheric lateralization.
00:21:43.095 -->
00:21:43.335Right.
00:21:43.335 -->
00:21:43.664...artsy people...
00:21:43.664 -->
00:21:45.339I'm left-handed, but I'm good at math.
00:21:45.650 -->
00:21:45.950Yeah, at home,
00:21:45.950 -->
00:21:48.349My dad was a mathematician, but my mother was an artist, right?
00:21:48.349 -->
00:21:51.380And so one was right and one was left.
00:21:48.349 -->
00:21:52.700And, and that, that stuff hasn't, hasn't actually, hasn't stood up.
00:21:52.704 -->
00:21:52.855Hasn't held.
00:21:52.855 -->
00:21:52.934Yes.
00:21:53.609 -->
00:22:00.930But the new hemispheric lateralization literature talks about the right hemisphere of your brain is largely responsible for the big "why" questions of life.
00:22:01.470 -->
00:22:04.980And then the left side is for the tasks, the "how to" and "what" stuff.
00:22:05.579 -->
00:22:13.140AI and the technologies that ... the exciting technologies that we're discovering and, and developing are gonna be great as an adjunct to the left hemisphere of our brain.
00:22:13.890 -->
00:22:21.599But if we use it on to, to substitute for the right side by making it into our buddy, or our lover, or our, our therapist—woe be unto us.
00:22:22.359 -->
00:22:25.269Because the most interesting questions in life can't be Googled.
00:22:25.388 -->
00:22:25.659Yeah.
00:22:25.659 -->
00:22:27.429And you can't feed them into AI.
00:22:27.638 -->
00:22:35.138And that's what AI I hope will do, is free us up for the conversations that we need to have with each other about the big why of life.
00:22:35.138 -->
00:22:35.199Yeah.
00:22:35.289 -->
00:22:37.929Only there that that's where the mystery of life comes.
00:22:37.929 -->
00:22:40.000That's where the meaning of life actually comes.
00:22:40.000 -->
00:22:40.059Yeah.
00:22:40.299 -->
00:22:53.039And so do you think that's gonna be one of those things that a classroom can do that a...a desktop tutor will never be able to do? Is be able to support you or I or our students in tolerating the uncertainty?
00:22:53.039 -->
00:22:55.019The discomfort of not knowing?
00:22:55.109 -->
00:22:55.589Absolutely.
00:22:55.589 -->
00:23:01.454That's what the ancient Greeks called "aporia." Aporia, or if you prefer aporia, who knows?
00:23:01.513 -->
00:23:06.615Anyway, the, the but aporia is, is sitting in the discomfort of not knowing.
00:23:06.763 -->
00:23:13.994And so Socrates would actually talk about the idea—you need to go away and puzzle, sitting in a state of puzzlement, per se.
00:23:14.144 -->
00:23:22.335And, and what we now know happens, is that exercises the parts of the brain that you actually need to gain an understanding of the ineffable.
00:23:22.920 -->
00:23:27.059That's actually a, a real problem with the way that we use technology today.
00:23:27.059 -->
00:23:32.519So in, in the, in the eighties or something, or, you know, in the stone age in the 1990s.
00:23:32.579 -->
00:23:40.230You know what, what did people do before they actually could scroll Instagram or look at YouTube shorts late at night?
00:23:40.230 -->
00:23:48.105They would have these unbelievably pretentious dorm room conversations that you would be mortified to hear back, played back to you.
00:23:48.284 -->
00:23:51.315But that's exactly what we needed to find the meaning of life.
00:23:51.315 -->
00:23:51.375How we spent time.
00:23:51.404 -->
00:23:52.335That's when it came about.
00:23:52.634 -->
00:23:52.694Yeah.
00:23:52.694 -->
00:23:54.91430 at night before you go to sleep.
00:23:54.944 -->
00:23:58.934"zoom, zoom, zoom"—you've actually, you've become an AI. No, worse.
00:24:00.470 -->
00:24:01.670You've entered the matrix.
00:24:01.880 -->
00:24:02.059Wow.
00:24:02.269 -->
00:24:05.450You know the truth is that one, the reasons that we have a meaning crisis.
00:24:05.539 -->
00:24:05.599Yeah. Your attention, certainly.
00:24:05.690 -->
00:24:15.200Uh, especially among young adults today, especially among hard-charging, striving young adults today, is because they've, they've been injected into a simulation of real life.
00:24:15.440 -->
00:24:18.980And the simulation is more or less what AI can do.
00:24:19.045 -->
00:24:22.105Which is to say there's nothing more than "how to" and "what" questions.
00:24:22.134 -->
00:24:22.375Yeah.
00:24:22.674 -->
00:24:23.160And that's not enough.
00:24:23.160 -->
00:24:29.875Now, that's a great way to zoom out and, and to reframe the use of AI as a tool rather than as a...
00:24:29.875 -->
00:24:30.414Absolutely.
00:24:30.414 -->
00:24:32.359... space that we wanna get to step in.
00:24:32.480 -->
00:24:40.615If you, if you free up your time from mundane tasks and spend that time engaging in big ideas with the people that you love, you win.
00:24:40.630 -->
00:24:40.920Yeah.
00:24:42.000 -->
00:24:54.660I love that, that very clear message throughout the book and the sense that if it requires you calculating the value of your hours in terms of what you would've earned or spent? Fine, do that.
00:24:54.660 -->
00:25:03.660But actually you can actually make that commitment just on the basis of values and vision and your commitment to human spiritual growth, right?
00:25:03.690 -->
00:25:04.410Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:04.410 -->
00:25:06.839But you have to, you do have to be committed to those big why questions.
00:25:06.839 -->
00:25:06.898Yeah.
00:25:06.898 -->
00:25:12.128You have to be committed to looking for the mystery and the meaning of life, and, and that's not easy in a way.
00:25:12.128 -->
00:25:19.419I mean, there's a reason that our great-grandparents were using their brains the way that they were supposed to, is because they didn't have the opportunity to check out.
00:25:19.569 -->
00:25:19.839Yeah.
00:25:19.869 -->
00:25:29.949They didn't have the opportunity to spend 24 hours a day on the left hemisphere with, you know, using technology to wipe out every ounce of, of boredom from their lives.
00:25:29.949 -->
00:25:31.148So there's no blank space.
00:25:31.148 -->
00:25:31.209Yeah.
00:25:31.209 -->
00:25:32.378It's all distraction.
00:25:32.469 -->
00:25:32.529Yeah.
00:25:32.529 -->
00:25:39.699Is what, you know, they, and it's, it's funny, there's a real irony actually that comes from this, which is that you're, you know, the, the great-Grandpa Raver.
00:25:40.289 -->
00:25:49.079He never came home and said, "Honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today." It is because it wasn't a thing, you know, the HPX axis flooding...
00:25:49.319 -->
00:25:49.619No.
00:25:49.680 -->
00:25:58.964...because his brain, it, it was working in the way it was intended to work in the late Pleistocene. And his his day from moment to moment was actually pretty boring.
00:25:58.994 -->
00:26:00.134But his life wasn't boring.
00:26:00.315 -->
00:26:01.095No, it was ...
00:26:01.095 -->
00:26:01.575that's right.
00:26:01.664 -->
00:26:07.154And now you can never be bored from moment to moment and have an unbelievably boring life.
00:26:07.184 -->
00:26:07.305Yeah.
00:26:07.664 -->
00:26:08.684And that's the problem.
00:26:08.714 -->
00:26:08.954Yeah.
00:26:09.615 -->
00:26:11.714The level of dysphoria that that might trigger is tremendous.
00:26:11.714 -->
00:26:12.075Exactly.
00:26:12.075 -->
00:26:12.315right.
00:26:12.315 -->
00:26:13.734And that's when we, we can't find the meaning of life.
00:26:13.934 -->
00:26:15.734That's the meaning crisis in a nutshell.
00:26:25.034 -->
00:26:26.144I'm glad you're here.
00:26:26.684 -->
00:26:27.224Me too.
00:26:27.284 -->
00:26:27.944I'm super excited.
00:26:27.944 -->
00:26:28.700at Vanderbilt to help us out with that challenge.
00:26:28.904 -->
00:26:31.994I can't, can't wait to get started with students and with the faculty.
00:26:31.994 -->
00:26:34.494And this is... Cybele, this is the place to be.
00:26:34.585 -->
00:26:35.003Awesome.
00:26:35.003 -->
00:26:35.784What drew you?
00:26:35.784 -->
00:26:36.654Honestly, Arthur?
00:26:36.654 -->
00:26:40.763What, what was the, uh, you know, is it the zeitgeist, is it the values?
00:26:40.763 -->
00:26:44.214What part of Vanderbilt made you feel that this was the right place for you?
00:26:44.784 -->
00:26:55.974I'm an incredibly lucky person and have opportunities to do different things, and I look around and I'm, I'm always looking for the next frontier of adventure and excitement.
00:26:56.505 -->
00:26:57.914And for me, that's intellectual.
00:26:57.914 -->
00:26:58.664That's moral.
00:26:58.664 -->
00:26:58.724Yeah.
00:26:58.875 -->
00:27:03.404That's social and emotional intellectual, not just intellectual, uh, excitement.
00:27:03.404 -->
00:27:09.494And I find here a community and, by the way, excellence, great scholars...
00:27:09.525 -->
00:27:09.674Yeah.
00:27:09.704 -->
00:27:10.875...top students,
00:27:10.904 -->
00:27:10.964Yeah.
00:27:11.055 -->
00:27:12.255Highly selective.
00:27:12.285 -->
00:27:13.275Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:13.275 -->
00:27:13.934I want that.
00:27:13.934 -->
00:27:14.894I absolutely want that.
00:27:15.285 -->
00:27:18.134But when it comes to a, the life of the mind, that's table stakes.
00:27:18.734 -->
00:27:20.444I want a place that's really gonna excite me.
00:27:20.865 -->
00:27:31.994Time is short, you know? I wanna, I wanna go to the place that's really gonna light me up and, and where I can actually play a part in, in building the next generation of, of people who have a sense of that kind of excitement as well.
00:27:32.025 -->
00:27:32.984I love that.
00:27:32.984 -->
00:27:34.634I think that's exactly right.
00:27:34.634 -->
00:27:35.865The sense that life is short.
00:27:35.865 -->
00:27:39.224There's a lot we wanna be able to know and do and discover, right?
00:27:39.825 -->
00:27:41.865That's super highly energizing.
00:27:41.924 -->
00:27:42.134Yeah.
00:27:42.224 -->
00:27:49.875Um, in terms of the disciplines that you wanna connect with or the students that you wanna connect with, what's your dream state for being here?
00:27:49.934 -->
00:27:56.819Yeah, my dream state is actually understanding that the, that there's a seamless garment between all of the disciplines that we're talking about.
00:27:56.819 -->
00:28:02.369The in point of fact, and it's, it's actually the story of my own life as a, as an academic, as a scholar.
00:28:02.369 -->
00:28:03.809I started as a classical musician,
00:28:04.079 -->
00:28:04.200Right.
00:28:04.410 -->
00:28:12.779And then as an economist, as a social scientist, and then retooling my, my, my, my skills, the way that I've had, I found that I'm, I'm, I'm looking at the same issues.
00:28:13.154 -->
00:28:17.775I'm looking at the same things from ... it's like looking through a prism from different angles.
00:28:17.835 -->
00:28:18.285Love it.
00:28:18.404 -->
00:28:20.894And that's the kind of, that's the kind of community I wanna belong to.
00:28:20.894 -->
00:28:24.944And so there's almost nothing that's going on at at Vanderbilt that I'm not interested in.
00:28:24.944 -->
00:28:36.085And I wanna bring people together around the biggest things in life. Around how we can, with the tools that we're being equipped with here, to lift people up and bring'em together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas.
00:28:36.085 -->
00:28:36.714That's what I wanna do.
00:28:36.835 -->
00:28:47.125It's so great, and it immediately makes me think of a lecture that we ... a series that we've been holding in New York City. And one was on collaboration between the Blair School of Music and the Divinity School...
00:28:47.335 -->
00:28:47.575...right?
00:28:47.575 -->
00:28:48.250On jazz, right?
00:28:48.250 -->
00:28:48.480Nice.
00:28:48.565 -->
00:28:59.144And that sort of energy around that focus on the seamless garment between, um, what we would not necessarily automatically put into the same room or on this same stage, right?
00:28:59.144 -->
00:28:59.354Yeah.
00:28:59.354 -->
00:29:07.729I mean, it's a, my dream is actually to have ... to do some sort of a program where you, you, you randomly take out of a hat, you know, academics from... Cybele: Spin a wheel.
00:29:07.904 -->
00:29:15.344...two, from two, from two disciplines, and you put them in together in a room and then, and then they talk to each other until they actually find out what they're both mutually interested in.
00:29:15.523 -->
00:29:20.474And their disciplines actually make it clearer because they're looking at it from two different angles.
00:29:20.474 -->
00:29:20.484Great.
00:29:21.039 -->
00:29:21.279This is sort of a...
00:29:21.279 -->
00:29:21.940It would be so cool.
00:29:21.940 -->
00:29:22.180Right?
00:29:22.180 -->
00:29:22.450Yeah.
00:29:22.509 -->
00:29:26.319Well, I mean, I would hope that they would choose, but we could pick them.
00:29:26.500 -->
00:29:26.710Yeah.
00:29:27.339 -->
00:29:28.359Like "you're up."
00:29:31.059 -->
00:29:38.440It's definitely a great plan for whether it's a dinner series or a way to connect with students and with faculty.
00:29:38.859 -->
00:29:40.329Um, what a great invitation.
00:29:40.329 -->
00:29:41.559Yeah.
00:29:41.648 -->
00:29:43.210...for people to come to the same table.
00:29:43.269 -->
00:29:43.898For sure.
00:29:43.960 -->
00:29:44.138Yeah.
00:29:44.138 -->
00:29:44.470I love it.
00:29:44.470 -->
00:29:50.138And this is the kind of place that's making a lot of news nationally and internationally. It's the kind of place where that kind of thing might just happen.
00:29:51.180 -->
00:29:52.259Arthur, I love it.
00:29:52.259 -->
00:29:54.869What would you like us to know or think as we close?
00:29:54.869 -->
00:29:56.819Today's been an amazing conversation.
00:29:56.819 -->
00:29:56.880Yeah.
00:29:56.964 -->
00:30:01.200It's been, it's, it's wonderful and it's the, I hope it's the beginning of a whole lot of wonderful conversations.
00:30:01.200 -->
00:30:01.565Yep.
00:30:01.644 -->
00:30:01.765Absolutely.
00:30:01.765 -->
00:30:13.680...able to actually have at Vanderbilt, and I'm thrilled to actually be part of. I think it's, I I'm important for us to remember, I mean, I, I've been in in higher education since I was a baby and before. I mean, I'm a third-generation academic.
00:30:14.400 -->
00:30:24.839And to remember that, that this is our opportunity to not just to create adventure for ourselves, but to bring adventure in the best possible sense to other people.
00:30:24.869 -->
00:30:24.990Yeah.
00:30:25.049 -->
00:30:26.730And to keep the spirit of adventure...
00:30:26.734 -->
00:30:26.884Yeah.
00:30:26.910 -->
00:30:35.730...in exactly everything that we're doing to look at what we're trying to learn as this frontier and with an unsure future...
00:30:35.849 -->
00:30:35.969Yeah.
00:30:35.969 -->
00:30:36.659...to be sure.
00:30:36.659 -->
00:30:38.819But that's the most exciting thing about it of all.
00:30:38.909 -->
00:30:54.164And if we can maintain that with just enough fear, but not be debilitated by that fear, and certainly not to cut off our, our, our, our willingness and ability to, to listen to things that are strange to us, then really there's no end of the possibilities...
00:30:54.164 -->
00:30:55.884...of the goodness that we can actually bring to other people.
00:30:56.525 -->
00:30:57.515So love that.
00:30:57.815 -->
00:31:00.785The absolute antithesis of fusty and...
00:31:00.875 -->
00:31:01.085Yeah.
00:31:01.325 -->
00:31:02.134...ivory tower.
00:31:02.134 -->
00:31:02.224I know.
00:31:03.035 -->
00:31:07.295Because that's the best and that's, you know what people don't know about life in our world.
00:31:07.805 -->
00:31:09.545Is that it's just the best thing?
00:31:09.785 -->
00:31:11.375Yeah, no, it truly is.
00:31:12.605 -->
00:31:15.634Arthur, this conversation highlights something so powerful.
00:31:15.634 -->
00:31:19.565I think that, you know, fulfillment, that flourishing, that happiness
00:31:19.684 -->
00:31:21.755Right.
00:31:21.755 -->
00:31:24.394They're not something that we wait for for later.
00:31:24.605 -->
00:31:27.214They're not something that's true only for other people.
00:31:27.515 -->
00:31:38.134They're grounded in intention, in community, in conversations like these, in curiosity, in lifelong search for adventure and seizing of adventure.
00:31:38.134 -->
00:31:38.704I love that.
00:31:39.390 -->
00:31:50.460We are so thrilled to welcome you to Vanderbilt, to our academic community, to our wider community in Nashville, to this part of the world. And we are so grateful for the perspective that you bring.
00:31:50.849 -->
00:31:52.559Thank you so much for joining us.
00:31:52.589 -->
00:31:54.765Thank you for having me in Nashville at Vanderbilt.
00:31:55.513 -->
00:31:58.424And going forward for the adventure we're gonna have together.
00:31:58.544 -->
00:31:59.054That's great.
00:31:59.234 -->
00:31:59.924Thank you so much.
00:31:59.954 -->
00:32:00.375Thanks.
00:32:07.365 -->
00:32:10.424The "Quantum Potential" podcast comes from Vanderbilt University.
00:32:10.994 -->
00:32:16.544I'm your host, Cybele Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs with Vanderbilt University.
00:32:17.325 -->
00:32:19.634Thank you to our guest, Arthur C. Brooks.
00:32:19.784 -->
00:32:25.515William A. Keenan, Jr. Chair in Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt for joining us today.
00:32:26.474 -->
00:32:30.674This episode was edited and mixed by the team at Sound On Sound Off.
00:32:30.704 -->
00:32:34.724You can learn more about their work at Sound on Sound off dot com.
00:32:35.503 -->
00:32:40.934For more information about"Quantum Potential," go to vanderbilt.edu/quantum potential.
00:32:41.924 -->
00:32:44.954Thank you for joining us today for the "Quantum Potential" podcast.
00:32:45.615 -->
00:32:50.865Stay tuned for more conversations with the thinkers and innovators reshaping our world.
00:32:51.555 -->
00:32:55.454I'm Cybele Raver, and this has been "Quantum Potential."
