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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
About time we revisited neuroscience. Yeah. Of fear. Fear is the mind killer. Yeah, we got the guy who was featured in Free Solo. Yeah. Not dying, ascending that cliff face. Yes. Coming up on StarTalk Special Edition. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And when it's Special Edition, it is Gary O'Reilly. Hey, Neil. Hey, man. Chuck, how you doing? Professional comedian? Yes, sir. All right, dude. Feeling good, man. All right. So, Gary, you cook these topics up. Got a good one. I'm impressed every time. Yeah, man. Tell us what you brought us.
Got to give a shout out to Lane Unsworth over in LA. All right, so getting to the top, reaching the summit, they are goals for millions, maybe if not billions of people daily around the world.
Yes. Either literal or figurative summits.
Totally, yes. But not all of us can get over our fears to reach it. But then there are some of us who can. So we've got to think about that. Today, we're going to talk about the science of fear. Yes, the science of fear. I like that. And how we can change it.
The neuroscience of fear.
Of course. And change our brains to overcome it. And who better to discuss that with a neuroscientist and a freestyle rock climber. Plus, I want to find out about his podcast.
What's it called? Planet Visionaries.
Yes, it's with Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiatives.
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Chapter 2: How does Alex Honnold define free solo climbing?
Yeah. Could you just explain what Free Solo means?
So before you do that, let me just say, because I don't think we gave Alex the proper reverence This guy is the best climber in the world that we have sitting here. Like, there is no one better. You understand what I'm saying? Like, he's a rock star. And what I love is he's like, yeah, whatever. You know, I just like to climb stuff. Wait, wait, he's a rock star? Ah, did you see what I did there?
I see what you did there. You weren't supposed to point it out.
So explain what it means. Yeah, so free solo climbing is climbing without a rope or harness, just climb with your hands and feet up a cliff.
So no extra tools or clips or hammers or safety net.
Which means if we think things through just a little bit. Yeah, if you fall, you die. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to be my car.
Because if free solo equals you fall, you die.
Yeah, basically.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What mental state is required for successful rock climbing?
In a climbing accident? Yes, in a climbing accident back in college. What impressed me was the things they could do they were kind of lean and lanky. So just like you can do one arm push-ups and finger pull-ups. Just tell me the kinds of things you can do that most of us can't or none of us can.
I mean, nothing that crazy. I can do one arm pull-ups, obviously. One arm pull-up? That's not crazy.
Yeah, of course.
Who can do that? Everybody does that.
All my friends can do that. Really? Yeah, but you hang out with rock climbers.
Of course. All your friends are rock climbers. Yeah, all my friends are professional climbers. Yeah. But I can't do one-arm push-ups because basically I have good pulling muscles, not that great at pushing muscles.
I never push the rock the way I pull the rock toward me. So I hadn't thought about it. In a push-up, you're pushing things away, which is not something you would ever do as a climber, typically.
I mean, you do a little bit of pushing as a climber because you have to like press onto things, like pressing over the top of it. Like imagine getting out of a pool if you're trying to get onto the top of a cliff. But that's pretty minimal compared to how much you're pulling. You're pulling all the time as you're pulling yourself.
So you got good biceps relative to your body weight.
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Chapter 4: How can fear be managed during high-risk activities?
you know, why are some of us more successful than others? And yeah, that starts to come down to the sort of indelible factors like mental things.
Is there a, I'll say, prototypical physiology attached to climbing or can any body type do it?
Any body type can do it, but strength to weight matters. So, I mean, there are some really big climbers, you know, because if you're strong enough, you can be big. But in general, people are relatively lithe. Okay. Like, I'm kind of a big climber. I'm like, I'm kind of waiting for a climber.
And in that movie. Which movie?
Another climbing movie? With Sylvester Stallone. Oh, Cliffhanger.
Yeah, but to me, he looked almost too muscular.
Yeah, but I think Sylvester Stallone would argue that you can never be too muscular. Right, exactly. Plus, he can always just, you know, grunt at the rocks to get them to cooperate.
That's true. I had not... And, you know...
All right, so enough about sly. So when you're planning a major ascent, are you physically training for that particular climb, or have you got all of your toolkit ready, you just need to polish it up and get going?
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Chapter 5: What role does the amygdala play in fear responses?
You say, I got to give up because I have no place to ascend from here.
Or typically you would raise your feet and you'd get closer to it.
What do you mean raise your feet? Climbed it.
Yeah, it's funny because most people when they're climbing the gym, they're like, I can't reach the next hold. And you're like, well, raise your feet. Basically, if you raise your center mass, like if you put your feet on the next level up, then you're like, oh, suddenly I can reach the next hold.
Oh, because your hands already got past that level. So wherever your feet are standing, your hands used to be there. Yeah. Right. So there's got to be something above where your current feet are if you're trying to reach a higher point above that.
In theory, or you can always just paste your feet against the wall. You're wearing these rubber shoes, so they kind of stick to rock a little bit. And so with enough body tension, you can just push and lever your body higher. The general idea that you're saying, like, what if there's a gap that you can't surmount?
Then it's like, yeah, I mean, if there's a gap gap and you can't surmount it, then you bail. That's a gap gap. Yeah, or you have to jump. Well, most people, though, are like, well, yeah, I mean, sometimes you jump from one hole to another. Jump? But without a rope, you prefer not to do that.
While you're ascending, there's a point where you are not in contact
with the rocks at all. But typically you only do that when you have a rope on and things. Ah. Okay. But when you're roped up, though, that's relatively common, where it's like you run out of holes and you jump or you fly.
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Chapter 6: How can we train ourselves to overcome fears?
I know. Because it makes sense. You're dead anyway, so what's the difference? You know what? I used to be afraid for a very short period of time. I used to be afraid of flying. And I would get in the plane and I'd be white knuckling and I'd be like, oh my God, oh my God.
I don't remember the exact flight, but I remember when the plane took off and we were no longer on the ground, something said to me, it's over. So relax. If the plane crashed right now, you're going to die. Most likely you're going to die. So what difference does it make if it crashes from 30,000 feet? Because here you are not even a hundred feet off the ground.
And if this plane went down, you would die. So it's the same thing.
So the psychology is he's taken away, you, he, you have taken away this issue and minimized it because you've said, it doesn't matter if it's a thousand or 50, the death is the outcome. So you've just taken, you've just made something that could be big and dramatic like Chuck's fear of flying and put it in its own box.
Yeah, or you've just kept it. Basically, I have a fear of death. I have a fear of falling to my death, just like anybody. Yeah. I try my absolute best to not fall to my death. I don't believe you. Well, I mean, because if I honestly didn't care, then I wouldn't do any practice. I wouldn't prep. I wouldn't train. I would just show up and be like, screw it. You know, if it works out, it works out.
You actually don't want to die. Well, so like if you've seen the film Free Solo, I mean, that documents two years of direct training for this one climb. But before that, I'd spent another six or seven years sort of building up to it. So I'm like, oh, I spent, you know, eight or nine years building, building up to this one climb. And then people are like, you have a death wish.
And I'm like, well, if I had a death wish, I would have just gone and done it. I wouldn't have spent nine years training for it.
Okay, so is it fair to say? Getting drunk and saying yee-haw.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of preparation in risk-taking?
Yeah, which I think it does a good job of.
No, I think the impressive part, but also is the doing. Because let's be honest, are you still the only one who's done it? Yeah, exactly. Look at him. This guy, I swear to God, I don't know what's wrong with you. All this climbing done f***ed up your brain because I ain't never seen nobody who has summited achievement like you have. And he's like, yeah, I guess. I mean, you know, whatever.
I kind of did it. You're very Mike Tyson about it. Like, well, whatever, you know.
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to grab a copy of Take Me to Your Leader because then it would be too late. Is it possible to be overconfident and then you sort of let down your cautions? And is that a part of your brain that you access and think about actively?
Hmm. Yeah, you're definitely trying to avoid being... I don't think I've ever been too overconfident. I don't know. Other people might say differently. I don't know. But yeah, that's certainly something to avoid. I mean, the thing with free soloing is you definitely never want to overstate your... You don't want to exceed your capabilities. Right.
So you have to keep a pretty clear-eyed view of what you're capable of.
You have to match your expectations with your abilities at all times.
Yeah, exactly. That's cool.
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Chapter 8: How does Alex Honnold apply his experiences to broader life lessons?
It's like, I don't really need added pressure because there was already just the fact that it's a 3000 foot face and it hasn't been done. It's really hard. And you know, I felt like that was enough. And so I was kind of like, well, I don't want to when, so actually, so part of my planning was that
You know, I had a couple months in Yosemite in the springtime, which is kind of like the time to do the free solo. But right after that, I'd agreed to go on this expedition to Alaska to climb some walls. And that was kind of training for this expedition to Antarctica later in the year to climb some other walls. And so I was kind of looking at- Antarctica has walls?
Yeah, some insane, like granite- Ice face? No, like granite teeth, like just giant jagged faces sticking out of the glaciers.
I was in Antarctica a year and a half ago.
I must have been in the wrong part of Antarctica. Were you on the coast or in the interior? Yeah, coast, coast. Yeah, no, in the interior, there are giant mountains sticking up all over.
Okay. It's totally amazing. You're at 40 below zero. Yeah, okay. Well, actually, in the sun, I mean, it's chilly, but it's not that chilly.
It's okay.
You can climb barehanded in the sun sometimes. It's unpleasant, but it's fun. But anyway, the point being that I had sort of planned these other expeditions with the intention of making my Yosemite season feel like training for these other trips. And so obviously I was intending to free solo cap. I wanted to climb El Cap. I knew that'd be so important to me.
But at the same time, I'm kind of like, well, this is just practice for these other trips. And, you know, it's all part of my year because I didn't want to put undue pressure. I didn't need to put extra pressure onto something that already felt like a lot.
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