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Before I get started,
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I'm really excited to be here
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actually to just watch
what's going to happen, from here.
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So, with that said,
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we're going to start with
what is one of our greatest needs,
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one of our greatest needs for our brain.
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And instead of telling you,
I want to show you.
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In fact, I want you to feel it.
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There's a lot I want you to feel
in the next 14 minutes.
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So if we could all stand up, right.
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We're all going to conduct
a piece of Strauss together.
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Alright, and you all know it.
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Are you ready?
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Alright.
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Ready, one, two, three.
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It's just the end.
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(Music: Richard Strauss
"Also Sprach Zarathustra")
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Right?
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You know where it's going.
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(Music)
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Oh, it's coming.
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(Music stops)
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Oh!
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(Laughter)
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Right?
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Collective coitus interruptus.
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OK, you can all sit down.
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(Laughter)
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We have a fundamental need for closure.
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(Laughter)
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We love closure.
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(Applause)
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I was told the story that when Mozart,
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just before he would go to bed,
he'd go to the piano and go
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da-da-da-da-da
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his father, who was already in bed,
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think, "Ah,"
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he'd have to get up
and hit the final note to the cord
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before he could go back to sleep.
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So the need for closure
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leads us to thinking
about what is our greatest fear.
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Think, what is our greatest fear
growing up, even now?
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And it's the fear of the dark.
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We hate uncertainty.
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We hate to not know.
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We hate it.
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Think about horror films.
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Horror films are always shot in the dark,
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in the forest,
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at night,
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in the depths of the sea,
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the blackness of space.
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And the reason is because
dying was easy during evolution.
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If you weren't sure that was a predator,
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it was too late.
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Your brain evolved to predict.
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And if you couldn't predict, you died.
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And the way your brain predicts
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is by encoding the bias and assumptions
that were useful in the past.
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But those assumptions
just don't stay inside your brain.
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You project them out into the world.
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There is no bird there.
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You're projecting the meaning
onto the screen.
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Everything I'm saying to you right now
is literally meaningless.
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(Laughter)
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You're creating the meaning
and projecting it onto me.
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And what's true for objects
is true for other people.
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While you can measure
their "what" and their "when,"
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you can never measure their "why."
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So we color other people,
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we project a meaning onto them
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based on our biases and our experience.
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Which is why the best of design
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is almost always about
decreasing uncertainty.
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So when we step into uncertainty,
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our bodies respond
physiologically and mentally.
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Your immune system
will start deteriorating.
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Your brain cells wither and even die.
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Your creativity and intelligence decrease.
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We often go from fear to anger,
almost too often.
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Why? Because fear is a state of certainty.
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You become morally judgmental.
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You become an extreme version of yourself.
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If you're a conservative,
you become more conservative.
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If you're a liberal,
you become more liberal.
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Because you go to a place of familiarity.
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The problem is that the world changes.
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And we have to adapt or die.
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And if you want to shift from A to B,
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the first step is not B.
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The first step is to go from A to not-A.
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To let go of your bias and assumptions.
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To step into the very place
that our brain evolved to avoid.
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To step into the place of the unknown.
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But it's so essential
that we go to this place,
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that our brain gave us a solution.
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Evolution gave us a solution.
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And it's possibly one of the most profound
perceptual experiences.
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And it's the experience of awe.
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(Music)
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(Applause)
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(Music)
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(Applause)
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(Music)
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(Applause)
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(Music)
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(Applause)
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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Beau Lotto: Ah, how wonderful, right?
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So, right now you're probably all feeling,
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at some level or another awe.
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Right?
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So what's happening
inside your brain right now?
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And for thousands of years,
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we've been thinking and writing
and experiencing awe
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and we know so little about it.
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And so to try to understand
what is it and what does it do,
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my lab of misfits had just
the wonderful opportunity and the pleasure
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to work with who are some of the greatest
creators of awe that we know,
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the writers, the creators,
the directors, the accountants,
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the people who are Cirque Du Soleil.
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And so we went to Las Vegas
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and we recorded the brain activity
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of people while they are
watching the performance,
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over 10 performances of "O,"
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which is iconic Cirque performance,
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and we also measure
the behavior before the performance,
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as well as a different group
after the performance.
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And so we had over 200 people involved.
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So what is awe?
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What is happening
inside your brain right now?
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It's a brain state.
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OK?
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The front part of your brain,
the prefrontal cortex,
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which is responsible
for your executive function,
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your attentional control,
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is now being downregulated.
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The part of your brain called
the DMN, default mode network,
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which is the interaction
between multiple areas in your brain,
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which is active during, sort of, ideation,
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creative thinking in terms
of divergent thinking and daydreaming,
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is now being upregulated.
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And right about now,
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the activity in your
prefrontal cortex is changing.
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It's becoming asymmetrical
in its activity.
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Biased towards the right,
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which is highly correlated
when people step forward into the world,
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as opposed to step back.
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In fact, the activity across the brains
of all these people was so correlated,
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that we're able to train
an artificial neural network
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to predict whether or not
people are experiencing awe
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to an accuracy of 75 percent on average,
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with a maximum of 83 percent.
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So what does this brain state do, right?
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Well, others have demonstrated,
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for instance, professors
Haidt and Keltner,
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have told us that people feel small
but connected to the world.
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And their pro-social behavior increases,
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because they feel an increased
affinity towards others.
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And we've also shown, in this study,
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that people have a less need
for cognitive control.
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They're more comfortable with uncertainty
without having closure.
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And their appetite
for risk also increases.
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They actually seek risk
and they are better able at taking it.
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And something that
was really quite profound,
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is that when we ask people,
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"Are you someone who has propensity
to experience awe?"
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They were more likely
to give a positive response
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after the performance than they were.
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They literally redefined themselves
and their history.
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So, awe is possibly the perception
that is bigger than us.
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And in the words of Joseph Campbell,
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awe is what enables us to move forward.
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Or in the words of a dear friend,
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probably one of our
greatest photographers,
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still living photographers,
Duane Michaels,
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he said to me just the other day
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that maybe it gives us the curiosity
to overcome our cowardice.
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So, who cares? Why should we care?
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Well, consider conflict,
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which seems to be so omnipresent
in our society at the moment.
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If you and I are in conflict,
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it's as if we're at the opposite
ends of the same line.
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And my aim is to prove that you're wrong
and to shift you towards me.
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The problem is, you are doing
exactly the same.
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You're trying to prove that I'm wrong
and to shift me towards you.
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Notice that conflict is the setup
to win but not learn.
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Your brain only learns if we move.
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Life is movement.
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So what if we could use awe,
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not to get rid of conflict,
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conflict is essential.
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Conflict is how your brain expands,
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it's how your brain learns.
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But rather, to enter conflict
in a different way.
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And what if we could enter it,
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awe could enable us to enter it
in at least two different ways?
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One, to give us the humility
and courage to not know.
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Right?
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To enter conflict with a question
instead of an answer.
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What would happen then?
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To enter the conflict
with uncertainty instead of certainty.
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And the second is
in entering conflict that way
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to seek to understand,
rather than convince.
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Because everyone
makes sense to themselves, right?
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And to understand another person,
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is to understand the biases
and assumptions
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that give rise to their behavior.
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And we've actually initiated a pilot study
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to look to see whether
we could use art-induced awe
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to facilitate toleration.
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And the results are actually
incredibly positive.
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We can mitigate against anger and hate
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through the experience of awe
generated by art.
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So where can we find awe,
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given how important it is?
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So, what if --
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A suggestion.
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That awe is not just
to be found in the grandeur.
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Awe is essential.
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Often it's scale, right,
the mountains, the sun scape.
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But what if we could actually
rescale ourselves?
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And find the impossible in the simple?
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And if this is true,
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and our data are right,
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then endeavors like science,
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adventure, art, ideas, love,
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a TED conference, performance,
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are not only inspired by awe.
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But could actually be our ladders
into uncertainty,
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to help us expand.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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Please, come up.
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(Applause)
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)