All language subtitles for through.the.wormhole.s04e04.how.do.aliens.think

Freeman: Do aliens think in ways
we could ever understand?

Do all forms of intelligence

share the same
underlying pattern --

a pattern we are only now
beginning to see?

By studying the nonhumans
in our midst,

scientists are learning
how alien minds function.

Their discovery --

that emotions may be
more important than logic,

and bodies matter
as much as brains.

We may soon know
how aliens think.

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

Captions Paid For By
Discovery Communications

Resync by Iscol@HDVietNam.com

we know that the stuff of life
is spread throughout the cosmos.

Odds are
that aliens are everywhere.

Will alien brains think
like ours?

Will they have brains at all?

Without an alien to study,

these seem impossible questions
to answer.

But we're not alone
on this planet.

If we want to know
how aliens think,

we can start by looking closely
at the alien minds

here on earth.

I used to look at my dog
and wonder,

"What's going on in there?"

did she think the way I did?

At least my dog seemed
part of the same world as me.

Other creatures seemed
utterly alien.

Is it possible

that all life possesses
some form of intelligence,

but sometimes so different
from our own

that we fail to see it?

Could a form of alien thought
be right under our noses?

We believe plants
cannot think or feel.

But what if we're wrong?

A ground swell of new research
suggests

plants possess
a form of intelligence

entirely alien to our own.

Most plants can smell, taste,

touch, and perhaps hear,

and, according
to these two researchers,

they may even talk.

Consuelo de Moraes
has doctorates

in chemistry and biology.

Mark mescher's background is

in animal behavior
and evolution.

The duo's experiments
have proven

that plants behave in ways

we normally only attribute
to creatures with brains.

I think what's alien
about the way

plants engage their environments
for us as animals

is that it's
just so counterintuitive.

Animals,
and particularly humans,

we're very visually oriented.

We're very cognitively oriented.

We're these problem solvers

that are used to sort of
encountering our environments

and thinking about them

and coming up with ways
to solve problems.

And plants are solving problems,
but in a very different way

of interacting
with their environment.

Freeman:
Recently, mark and consuelo

have used
pheromone detecting machines

and time-lapse cameras to study
a leafless parasitic vine

called cuscuta pentagona.

Cuscuta exhibits a host
of problem-solving behaviors

we don't expect to see
in plants.

But this fascinating
life form has a dark side.

It may look like
an ordinary vine,

but in the plant world,
it's a vicious serial killer.

De Moraes:
Cuscuta is a true parasite,

so as opposed to most plants,
they don't have roots.

They don't really do
photosynthesis,

so in order to survive,

they must attach
to a host plant.

They work like vampires,
in a sense.

They will take the resources
out of the plant

and then grow based
on the resources

from the host plant

so they will not produce
anything.

They're true parasites.

Freeman:
As a cuscuta vine grows,

it probes its surroundings
the way we do with our hands

when we search
for the bathroom light

in the middle of the night.

The vine bends and grows until
it finds something tasty --

say, a tomato plant.

Then it probes downward

until it finds
the base of the stem,

which it sinks its teeth into.

It wraps itself around the plant
and sucks out its vital juices,

and strangely enough,
cuscuta can smell

whether its potential victims
are healthy or not.

De Moraes:
We accept that animals

can find the host
based on smell.

We see that all the time, right?

It's just we don't think
that plants have that ability,

and I think
that's what's fascinating,

because we just have this line
that we have drawn

that says animals can do this
but plants cannot.

Freeman: Plants can also
use smell to communicate.

Some use odors to defend
themselves against predators

and warn each other of danger.

For instance, caterpillars
are eating the leaves

of this soybean plant.

The plant calls for help

by releasing chemicals
that attract wasps.

The wasps sting the caterpillars
to death.

While this is going on,

other plants smell
the distress signal

and release their own chemicals
to ward off attack.

Plants live on a different
time scale from humans.

Their actions unfold so slowly,

we think nothing is happening
at all.

But plants defend themselves,
communicate with other plants,

recognize injured neighbors
by scent, and sniff out meals.

Plants predate the human race.

They may well outlast it,
so is it likely

that their very alien
form of thought and behavior

could be found on other worlds?

Mescher: The history of
evolution on different planets

may unfold
in very different ways.

I think we would be very likely
to find something

that was very similar
ecologically to what plants do.

I think they're able to take
energy from starlight,

basically, and convert that

into biochemical energy
that they can then use.

That's just the base
of the food chain,

and it seems that that would
be the logical place

for an ecosystem to start,
even on another planet.

Freeman: The question is
are plants on other worlds

any better at thinking
than the ones we know?

Do alien trees contemplate
their branches?

Do alien flowers have nightmares
about worlds with no sun?

Perhaps alien plants
have developed

the complexity of thought
it takes to become self-aware.

This woman would say "No."

she believes that no life form
here on earth or out in space

can evolve complex thought
until it has the ability to move

and to sense the world
as it moves through it.

For cognitive scientist
saskia nagel,

the interplay of sensory input
and bodily motion

is the foundation upon
which consciousness is built.

For instance, I see this cup,

I can feel this cup
with my fingers,

and also, I can sense
the weight of this cup

if I grab it.

That's sensory input.

Bit at the same time,
closely coupled,

my eyes move when I look at it,

I have to move my arm
to grab it,

and I have to keep it like this

if I want to sense
the weight of it,

and we think that the coupling

of sensory processes
and motor processes

is what allows us to perceive.

Freeman: Our idea of
what it means to be conscious

is inextricably tied
to our specific human senses --

the ability to see, smell, hear,
touch, and taste.

But saskia believes that aliens
could develop rich mental lives

even if they sense their world
in entirely different ways.

To prove it,
she's feeding an alien sense

into the nervous system
of a group of volunteers.

By wearing a device called
a feelspace belt,

test subjects are learning

how to feel the position
of magnetic north.

This gives them
a perfect sense of direction.

It's just a belt equipped
with a number of vibrators.

On the back side,
there's a little compass --

a very good one, actually --

and a little computer
at the other side down there,

and the compass and the computer
always tell one element

of these vibration elements
at the time to vibrate,

and it's always that element
that points north.

Freeman:
Today, saskia and her team

have taken three volunteers
into a forest.

The volunteers put on
blacked-out goggles.

Next, they are spun around
until they are disoriented.

Now they have to find their way
to saskia,

who stands at a fixed position
directly north.

Ordinarily,
they wouldn't stand a chance,

but each volunteer
has spent six weeks

training with the belt.

They have developed
a built-in compass.

Nagel: Actually, it's
interesting that they don't feel

the tactile stimulation
anymore after the training.

It is as if this new sense
has always been there,

and they really develop
a different sense of space.

Freeman: The day
when we have solid evidence

of how aliens think
may be a long way off,

but experiments like this
give us a way of approximating

what it's like in alien heads

with an alien way
of sensing the world.

They show us
the ability to think

is not dependent
on the senses we know.

Logically,
aliens would evolve senses

tailored to their own
particular environments.

On a planet where light is dim,
having a built-in radar system

would be more valuable
than the sense of sight.

An alien could have a completely
different set of senses

and still dominate its world.

But how do groups of aliens
think?

How do they communicate
with each other, organize,

and form
sophisticated societies?

The answer may be
right under our feet.

Your brain is like a maze
of twisting railroad tracks.

As neurons grow, they make
trillions of connections,

and out of this
incredibly complex network

arises the miracle of your mind.

But who's to say
it works the same way

for intelligent life
on other planets?

What if the neural connections
of alien brains

are spread
across many different bodies?

Professor Nigel Franks
is looking for an answer

by closely studying the dominant
form of life on earth --

insects.

So, I've been working on ants
professionally now

for about 30 years,

and every day, we have
a successful experiment.

They surprise and delight me,

and I think the thing
that's absolutely riveted me

is now we know that ants are
so much more sophisticated

than we ever knew them to be.

Freeman:
When ants get together,

they form a superorganism --
a large, intelligent life form

made of small, not especially
intelligent parts.

Franks:
What's special, I think,

is that the way the ants
communicate with one another,

so the whole colony emerges
effectively

as a brain-like structure.

Freeman: To see this mass brain
in action,

Nigel forces the ants
to go house hunting.

Franks:
Right, so, in this experiment,

we've taken
one of our ant colonies.

We've been really mean to them,
because we've totally destroyed

the nest
that they've been living in,

and what that means
is they have to find a new home,

and we've offered them a choice
of two alternative nest sites.

There's one over here,

which is too light
and got a very wide entrance,

which is two things
they don't like,

versus this nest
that they really should prefer

because it's got
a beautiful narrow entrance.

It's got plenty of space
for them to live in,

and this red filter means
that the nest is dark,

and that's something
they prefer, as well,

so we would expect them
to be able to choose this nest.

And the beauty of this
experiment is we should be able

to work out exactly
how they go about

making this kind of decision.

Freeman:
Ants are picky shoppers.

When they size up a new home,

they carefully consider
the height of the ceilings,

the floor space,
the width of the rooms,

and the number of entrances.

They will reject nests
that have hygiene problems,

such as the remains
of a previous tenant.

[ Screams ]

Franks: If an ant likes
a particular nest,

it goes home to the colony
and finds a receptive nest mate,

and it leads it
back to that nest site.

Basically, the leading ant
teaches a single following ant

the route to the new nest site,

then, if it likes it, as well,
go home and recruit yet more.

So 1 ant becomes 2
becomes 4 becomes 8 becomes 16,

and when they build a sufficient
number of their nest mates

in the new nest site,

they achieve what we call
a quorum threshold,

and that's the decision point
that makes them commit

to that particular nest site,

and then they'll start carrying
their nest mates there

rather than leading them.

Freeman: Recently, computer
scientist James Marshall

used Nigel's findings
to create a sophisticated model

of ant decision-making.

Then something remarkable
happened.

James came upon
another computer simulation

that looked very much
like the one he was working on.

A colleague came to join
my department from Princeton,

where he'd been working
on modeling

primate decision-making circuits
in the brain

just around the same time
I started making

these computer and math models

of ant colonies
making decisions,

and we went
to each other's talks,

and we were both really excited
because we could see

that each was basically looking
at the same kind of system.

Although one was an ant colony
and one was a primate brain,

they were both basically working
in the same way

to make decisions.

Freeman:
James realized

that individual ants
in a superorganism

behave like the neurons
in a single primate brain.

Marshall: So, I think ants
collectively process information

in a very interesting way.

No individual ant needs to know

all the details
about its environment,

but by having a little bit
of information

and aggregating it together
at the colony level,

the colony can be well informed
about the decision it's making,

even if individual ants
are less well informed,

and that's analogous
to neurons in the brain.

No individual neuron
really knows anything,

but you stick a load of them
together,

and collectively,
the brain does know something.

Freeman:
So, given enough time,

could ant colonies
become conscious?

Are they already conscious?

Franks: Well, I think
one of the great differences

between the way
we solve problems

and the way ants solve problems

is the ants actually have to
mingle with the problem

to begin to solve it.

And the great difference
we have is that we can

often play virtual-reality games
in our heads

to think about
alternative scenarios

and how we might solve
the problem

and what the consequences
of that might be.

So, what we do is stand back
and think about things,

whereas the ants really roll up
their sleeves

and get on with it.

Freeman: Ant colonies
can accomplish goals

far beyond the capabilities
of their individual members.

But they can only think
about things

that are directly in front
of them.

They lack self awareness
and the ability to imagine.

Perhaps alien insects
have these abilities.

On earth, they do not.

So, is there
a nonhuman intelligence on earth

that rivals us for
thoughtfulness and innovation?

This man says yes.

He's studying a creature
that may hold the secret

to alien thought and the mystery
of consciousness.

Human brains
are not the largest on earth,

but they are the most complex.

Our brains don't just think.

They also are self-aware.

They are conscious.

Is consciousness unique
to the human brain

or could a creature
with radically different

brain architecture
also be self-aware?

The answers may lurk
behind these unblinking eyes.

Octopuses are invertebrates.

They don't have spinal cords,

yet they exhibit
a level of intelligence

we usually associate
only with mammals.

They appear to be thoughtful,
clever, even calculating,

but they are utterly unlike us.

Octopuses are
truly the closest thing

to an alien life form
of any degree of intelligence

on the planet earth.

Freeman: Neuroscientist
David edelman studies

the brain of the octopus,
or more precisely, brains.

It has more than one.

In the common octopus,
we have half a billion neurons,

or nerve cells, more than half
of which are in the arms,

and those arms, in fact,
are really, really interesting

because you can
almost characterize them

as having
their own miniature brain.

Freeman: The multiple brains
of the octopus

act as a distributed
processing system --

the arms feeding data
to the head

like a network of computer nodes
feed data to a central hub.

If one of the nodes is cut off,
it can still function.

Edelman:
If you cut off an octopus's arm,

that arm is actually able
to execute a series of movements

that are very, very coordinated,
which is really intriguing,

and you do not see that at all
in any vertebrate.

[ Arm murmuring ]

Freeman:
How do you work out

what a creature
with an alien brain is thinking?

David's solution was to adapt
intelligence tests

made for mice and rats
to octopuses.

So, what you see here
is a Barnes maze,

which was originally designed
for looking at memory

and learning and actual
visual navigation in rodents,

and what we're doing here
is we're checking

the octopus's capability
for visual navigation,

and so what you see here
is this fairly simple maze

with 18 holes,
but only one hole is a true hole

that leads to an escape.

The escape is into a container
of its own seawater.

But you also see
these visual landmarks,

and the idea behind this is
to follow the animal

as it learns the location
of the various landmarks

in relation
to the one true escape hole.

Freeman: The octopus has
no problem finding its way out.

Trials have shown
that when the markers are moved,

it will head towards what it
believes to be the exit sign,

even if it's no longer above
the escape hole.

Clearly, the animal plans, acts,
and remembers.

It's thinking at a high level of
complexity, but is it conscious?

Edelman: I define consciousness
as the stitching together

of all of the diverse
sensory input

that's coming into my brain --
visual input,

sense of touch combined
with auditory, what I hear --

and the remembrance
of all of that stuff

stitched together
as a unitary whole.

Freeman:
So a creature with multiple
brains could be conscious,

but being conscious
is not the same thing

as being self-aware,
and right now, we have no way

of measuring either
consciousness or self awareness.

Edelman: If somebody were to ask
me whether my dog is conscious,

as a pet owner and a dog lover,
I would say, "Well, of course.

"She seems to be aware
of her world.

"She seems to respond

in ways that look
remarkably familiar to me."

but as a scientist,
I have to demand

evidence of consciousness
in nonhuman animals

who cannot report to me
their internal conscious states.

Freeman: The octopus's thoughts
are a mystery

and may forever remain
a mystery.

We may never know
if it is self-aware

or if it can contemplate
its world.

Can you think without words?

Is there such a thing
as thought without words?

Well, you know,
I might be in the minority,

but I happen to think
that you probably can.

I think that there can be
visual thoughts.

It's very hard for us as humans
to imagine that

because, of course,

every time we think,
language breaks in.

What will alien languages
be like?

Would theirs and ours
have anything in common?

The evolution of language
on earth may hold the answers

to whether humans and aliens
can one day communicate

or be hopelessly separated
by our uncommon tongues.

Human evolution
has been going on

for roughly 5 million years,

and that's just a blip

in the 13.5 billion-year history
of creation.

Chances are

we are not the smartest
creatures in the universe.

If we met aliens
far more advanced than us,

could we communicate?

Would we
speak the same language?

What would language be like

for a species
a million years older than us?

Professor Simon Kirby
sees language

as a living thing
that evolves over time.

The sheer variety of languages
on earth,

6,000 unique tongues,

are mirrors of how we think

and how thought may change
in the future.

Right now, we're doing something
pretty extraordinary.

I'm breathing out slowly

while at the same time
moving my tongue, jaw, and lips

in an incredibly fast
ballet of movement.

I can use this skill to take
a thought that's in my head

and transfer it into yours.

Freeman: Simon wants to know
why this happens.

Kirby: How did we end up
having a language

with a particular kind
of structure

that allows us
to talk about anything?

It turns out, surprisingly, that
we can get a clue to the answer

by looking at a simple game
like broken telephone.

In the game of broken telephone,

a sentence evolves as it's
passed from player to player,

but it doesn't evolve
biologically.

Rather, it evolves through
a process of cultural evolution.

Thanks.

So, the original sentence was,

"The survival of certain words
in the struggle for existence

is natural selection."

and what you guys turned it into
was,

"Longer existence
is not longer existence."

[ laughter ]

Freeman: The sentence
seems to have mutated

from sense to nonsense.

But Simon argues
what's significant

is the sentence became shorter
and easier to learn.

That is how language evolves.

So, the broken telephone game

acts as a kind of miniature
version of cultural evolution.

So what's happening is
that each player in the game

is hearing a sentence

and mapping it somehow
into their brains briefly

and then trying to reproduce it
again.

Because that process
is imperfect,

the sentence can evolve
over time,

so the sentence
we get at the end

is different from the one
at the start,

and what's happened is that that
sentence has adapted in some way

to the brains
of the people playing the game.

Freeman: Proving this
scientifically is difficult

because language doesn't leave
a fossil record behind to study.

Simon tackles this problem

by creating alien languages
word by word,

then watching them adapt
to human brains.

So, we wanted to see
if we could re-create

the cultural evolution
of language in the lab,

whether we could study something
that take hundreds of years

and see it happen
in basically an afternoon.

So what we did is
we set up an experiment

where we teach a volunteer

an alien language
that we've made up

and then test them on it.

So in the setup, we have a bunch
of alien fruits that have names,

but every name is different.

And this language is essentially
impossible to learn.

Okay, Adam, so,
now I'm gonna ask you

to try and identify some of
these alien fruits for me.

Pohumo.

That one.

Wagahuki.

Freeman:
Virtually no one is able to
remember the words correctly.

Okay, I'm afraid you actually
got none of those correct,

so sorry about that.

But that's okay.

Now Adam will write down
what he thinks the words were,

and then this new set of words

will be taught
to the next volunteer.

This volunteer would write down
her version of the words,

and then those words will be
taught to the next person.

Kirby: So, towards the end
of the experiment,

participants that are coming in

and learning the language
after it

has, if you like,
washed through the brains

of some of
our earlier participants,

suddenly seem to do better.

In fact, towards the end
of the experiment,

our volunteers can name
all the fruit that we show them,

even ones
they've never seen before.

Well done.
That's all of them correct.

Congratulations.

And what's happened here is
that the language has evolved.

It has evolved structure,

and it turns out
that the mistakes people make

will tend to be
the kinds of things

that other participants
can learn,

so every mistake
one generation makes

makes the language easier to
learn for the next generation.

Freeman: So, communicating
with an ancient alien race

may not be so difficult
after all.

If language evolution

follows similar patterns
on other worlds,

an alien tongue
could be easy to learn.

But don't expect the aliens
to be smart.

If we look at how humans work
today,

we store information online.

We share information online
on these massive networks,

and we basically find out any
information we want instantly,

so perhaps an alien civilization

would have gone
further down this road.

I can imagine evolution
taking us in a direction

where less and less
is needed of our brains,

as it were -- of our biology --

because more and more of that
is taken on

by the cultural system
that we're building around us,

so perhaps we will get more
and more stupid biologically

and more and more smart
culturally over time.

Freeman: Clever or not,

aliens would need language
to have civilization.

But would they need speech?

Why bother to talk if you can
share your thoughts directly

via mental telepathy?

How might aliens communicate?

We speak.

Language lets us
transmit our thoughts

into other people's brains.

But language might not come
in the form of speech.

What if complex life
evolved on a planet

where communication by sound
was impossible?

A different way of transmitting
information might evolve.

What if aliens are telepathic?

It's already happening
here on earth.

Today, this man's thoughts

will be detected and transmitted
by a machine.

It's part
of a revolutionary project

led by university of California
at irvine neuroscientist

Mike d'zmura.

We call it
a brain-computer interface.

We use e.E.G.
To measure the faint signals

generated by the brain
when a person thinks.

Our goal is
to analyze the e.E.G. Signals

to determine what it is
the person is thinking.

We can then send the phrases
to some other person

using any number of means,

including e-mail
or text messaging.

Freeman: Mike is testing

whether this man can use
the brain waves generated

when he imagines
two different syllables

as a form
of telepathic morse code.

D'zmura:
They're two syllables presented

at the beginning of trials.

These are either "Wo" Or "Fi."

if our subject hears "Fi,"
Then he thinks "Fi."

fi.

[ Beeping ]

If he hears "Wo,"
Then he thinks "Wo."

wo.

[ Beeping ]

"Fi" Could be used
to communicate

the short element of morse code,
"Di."

"Wo" Can be used to communicate

the long element of morse code,
"Dah."

Freeman:
The meta-morse-code tests
have been stunningly successful,

with an accuracy rate near 100%.

This synthetic
telepathy technology

exploits an error correction
mechanism in the brain.

When the brain sends a command
to the motor cortex,

it also creates
an internal impression

known as an efference copy

of what the resulting movement
would look and feel like.

[ Groans ]

Mike and his collaborators
realized

that if they could read these
efference copies in the brain,

synthetic telepathy could
advance to the next stage,

transmitting thoughts
not just in morse code,

but in common phrases.

Finding and isolating
an efference copy

in the electrical jumble
of the mind

is no easy thing.

The exact location
of neural activity

is difficult to discern

because the scalp, skull,

and cerebral fluid
surrounding the brain

scatter its electric signals

before they reach the electrodes
of an e.E.G.

The real problem is
the signal-to-noise ratio.

At the moment,
I am speaking to you right now.

You are listening,

and this is generating activity
in your brain.

Let's suppose
that this brain activity

is what we would like to detect.

This is the signal.

Well, if it were the only thing
going on in your brain,

it wouldn't be so hard.

However, there are many things

that your brain is doing
simultaneously.

It's controlling your heartbeat.

[ Drum beats ]

It's controlling
the rate of breathing.

[ Saxophone plays ]

We are constantly scanning
our external environments.

[ Guitar plays ]

It generates thoughts
that rise up into consciousness.

[ Accordion plays ]

Now, suppose
that all of these things

are going on simultaneously
behind the skull.

[ All instruments play ]

This is similar

to all of the sources of noise
in a recording studio

behind a thick plate of glass.

[ Fading ] Pretty soon,

it's gonna be impossible
to hear the signal.

[ All instruments playing ]

...great problem that we face
in signal processing.

Freeman: So far, Mike's software

is able to identify words
in the subject's brain

about half the time.

But advances in synthetic
telepathy are coming quickly.

Someday,

we may be able to project
our thoughts through the ether,

and if we can do it,

it could be standard equipment
for an alien species.

I can easily imagine that there
are other species out there

who may actually be better
at signaling things

through interfaces
such as e.E.G.

So I can imagine, for instance,
a species whose motor areas

are not buried behind
an extraneous piece of brain,

but rather on the surface.

Freeman:
This alien species could learn
to pool its thoughts,

much as ant colonies
form superorganisms,

but with vastly more brainpower
augmented by machines.

The thinking power
of this alien meta brain

could dwarf anything
we can imagine.

But could a society that
communicates by thought endure?

If you think you get
too many texts and e-mails now,

what happens

when people don't even have to
go to the trouble of typing?

On earth, instant communication

seems to cause as many problems
as it solves,

perhaps because our messages
are loaded with emotion.

We presume that isn't an issue
for mentally advanced aliens.

Surely, they are logical,
machinelike beings

beyond emotion.

But this woman believes
with her heart and her mind

that thinking and feeling
are two sides of the same coin.

Like us,
aliens may need emotions.

Science fiction often depicts
advanced alien species

as cold, emotionless beings
of pure intellect --

basically, computers with legs.

According to
this line of reasoning,

emotions are primitive urges
that merely cloud our thinking.

But would
a mentally superior species

necessarily be devoid
of feelings?

Or could aliens have a heart?

Psychologist Lisa Barrett's
groundbreaking research

reveals that language, memory,
and even rational thought

all depend upon emotion.

Barrett:
When you feel angry,

you experience this

as very different
from when you're having a memory

or when
you're thinking something

or when
you're perceiving something

like a beautiful flower.

Those seem to you

to be very, very different kinds
of experiences,

but at the level of the brain,
there are common networks

that are active
during all of those events.

Freeman: The notion that
our emotional and rational minds

are entirely separate

dates black to Plato,

who saw emotions
as savage, brutish instincts.

[ Groans ]

Charles Darwin argued

that emotions are evolutionary
holdovers from animals

which no longer
serve any useful purpose,

like our vestigial tailbones.

Humans of the future,

or any alien species far along
the evolutionary trail,

will not be burdened
with feelings.

But according to Lisa,

you can't separate reason
from emotion.

In her lab
at northeastern university,

Lisa studies
how emotions shape thought.

She does this by
altering people's core affect --

the basic state of mind
that underlies complex emotions,

and she does this
without their knowing it.

Barrett: So, subjects
come into the laboratory,

and using specialized equipment,

we present different images
to the left and the right eye.

To one eye, we will present
flashing images --

let's say mondrian-type image
of artwork --

embedded in visual noise.

To the other eye,
we present a static image

of either a neutral face,
a smiling face,

or a scowling face.

Freeman: When one of your eyes
is shown a flashing image

and the other eye
is shown a still image,

you are only conscious
of seeing the flashing image,

but the still image nonetheless
reaches your subconscious mind.

By measuring skin conduction,
heart rate, breathing,

and vascular resistance,

Lisa detects her subjects'
unconscious responses

to the hidden faces

and then measures
how this affects their thinking.

She's found that people exposed
to the static smiling face

are more likely to find the
mondrian-type image beautiful.

But when the hidden face
is frowning,

they don't like the picture.

It's not the case

that we're impassively
viewing things in the world

and then
having reactions to them.

Our affective feelings

are actually influencing
what we see

and how we make judgments
about what we see.

Freeman:
Whether we know it or not,

emotions determine how we think
and what we pay attention to.

Your affect helps you
to allocate your attention,

for example, towards me

and ignore all the other sources
of information

that you could potentially
be paying attention to.

Affect also helps you
to sharpen your perception

of the thing
you're paying attention to.

Freeman:
If emotions are essential

to consciousness
and self-awareness,

then aliens
will certainly have them.

They will use them
the same way we do --

to realize their goals...

Yay!

...to define
their personalities...

[ Grunts ]

...to make sense of their world.

The true nature of alien thought

would probably
defy our speculations.

It may well be
beyond our understanding,

but by studying the minds
of the aliens here on earth,

we have learned much
about ourselves

and the gift of having brains

that can think, feel,
and communicate.

One day, when we finally
engage with alien minds,

we will find out

whether consciousness,
emotion, and imagination

are unique to us
or spread throughout the stars.

Right now,
we have no way of knowing.

All we can do is imagine.