Dr. David Eagleman

Now, the part that's really amazing about us is we've got lots of short-term tribes, but we also have this capacity to look into the future and think about who we want to be.

And that is essentially subserved by our prefrontal cortex, which, as we mentioned earlier, is something that is, you know,

The size of it is unique to humans.

All of our closest cousins in the animal kingdom don't have a prefrontal cortex that's a fraction of what we have.

That's what allows us to unhook from the here and now.

Okay.

Now, here's the thing.

I have been fascinated by this for a long time about how we –

sometimes know, okay, my future self is going to act badly in this situation.

So I'm going to do something now so that my future self can't act badly.

So this is the topic of my next book.

It's called The Ulysses Contract.

And where this term comes from,

is in the Odyssey, Odysseus, otherwise known as Ulysses, is coming home from the Trojan War, and he realizes that way up ahead he's going to pass the Island of the Sirens, where you've got these beautiful female creatures who sing these songs that are so beautiful, it beggars the mind of the sailors, and everyone crashes into the rocks and dies.

Ulysses really wants to hear the song, but he knows, like any mortal man, he's going to fall for this and crash into the rocks.

So what does he do?

He has his men lash him to the mast so he can't move.

He has them put beeswax in their ears so they can't do anything.

And he tells them, no matter what I do, no matter how much I'm screaming, just keep going, just keep sailing.

Smart.