Alex Honnold

Like, I don't know.

But, no, I mean, the thing is, though—

And this is what I wish was explained in the film better is that this is we're being shown black and white photos inside an fMRI.

So you're inside a sealed metal tube.

You're totally safe.

You're physically safe and comfortable.

And you're being shown black and white photos.

And so to me, obviously, that's not going to light up the fear response in my brain because you're looking at pictures.

You're like, who cares?

I'm totally safe.

But in a control subject, you know, apparently your brain sort of responds to images one way or another.

But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years, so I've been scared quite a lot.

And you're kind of like, well, black and white photos start to lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for 20 years.

So it's like, obviously, that's not going to trigger much.

I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala, and it works.

You know what I mean?

Because I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala, then I would have died already at youth because I wouldn't be able to function as a human, basically.

But had it shown something like that where there are structural differences or some real change, but this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning, I respond differently than an average person.

And you're like, yeah, no kidding.

If you put a monk into an fMRI, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well.