Transcriber: Marina Recio
Reviewer: Allam Zedan I am middle-aged, as you can see. What that means is that, day by day, I become
a lot more reliant and trusting of machines like this than I am of this machine. Like some of you, I suspect,
I'm increasingly aware of the frailties
of the human body and brain. And I look around at this
technological revolution taking place. And I kind of want to apply this
same ingenuity to the human body to upgrade myself. After all, if we've gone from this to this in my lifetime, why can't we go from this to this? Why can't I, why can't we all be
stronger, smarter, faster, longer lasting? We've all seen great new inventions
that are aimed at doing just that; upgrading the human body. High-tech replacements
for our hands and arms, our knees and legs, our eyes and ears, even our brain. Google has an ambition to connect
the brain directly to the internet; no typing or speaking required. Think about that for a second,
kind of creepy, kind of cool? I'm sure it will happen
if Google is going after it. The main reason that we fantasize about
these biological, these bionic upgrades is that our own biological upgrades
happen so infrequently, at least that's what
we were told in school, right? Here's what we were taught: Once upon a time we evolved from this to this, to this, to this, to this. And now, we are who we are. This is Darwin's famous natural selection. It is thought to be the one and only, very slow upgrade mechanism that we have. And what we were told was,
we're stuck in place we'll stay just like this until
a random genetic mutation happens and spreads throughout the entire species. For most of the grand time scale
of human existence, we stay the same. That's what we were taught. But that turns out not to be the case. If you look closely at science
from the last few decades, a very different lesson emerges. Humans are self-upgradeable. We are designed to upgrade on our own. Not just every few hundred thousand
years, but all the time. We have a genetic operating system whose function it is to constantly adapt
to external conditions and needs. Imagine if Apple held an event and said, here's your new iPhone 6 and you're really
gonna want to buy this one because you'll never have to buy
another one. Next year this iPhone 6
will turn into an iPhone 7. The year after that,
it will turn into an iPhone 8, not just the software, the hardware itself
will transform right in your hand and into what you need it to be. So, the screen will become bigger
or smaller depending on what you need, the glass will become more flexible
or more rigid depending on what you need, the case will become harder or softer
or more grippy or smoother depending on what you need. That's what human beings do. We constantly adapt to our external conditions and needs
using not one, but four different biological upgrade mechanisms. We've already talked about
natural selection, it's the slowest by far, it's the only one we don't get to see
in our own lifetime. So let's talk about the other three. First upgrade mechanism is homeostasis. It's a biochemical system that allows the body to adapt constantly, second to second,
minute to minute, hour to hour, to environmental changes. What's an example of homeostasis? I am in my warm New York City apartment, I decide to go outside, it's freezing cold, I'm in the middle of a freezing cold
blizzard all of a sudden. Immediately, my hypothalamus sends signals to constrict the blood vessels
close to my skin, it activates my skeletal muscles to shiver
and generate warmth, the hair on my skin raises up
to trap warm air, glands secrete adrenaline and thyroxine
to increase my metabolic rate. I'm not even aware of it,
but my body has just immediately self-adjusted to a new environment, it is instantly upgraded
to deal with the cold. That's homeostasis,
upgrade mechanism number one. So I'm outside and I'm actually on my way to
my son's school a few blocks away, he's in the fifth grade
and he's learning to play the violin, and today I get to hear
his first orchestra concert. (Music) You do too. (Music continues) I think if my fifth grade orchestra
had been anywhere near that hip, my life would have gone
in a completely different direction. So what's going on with my son
as he is learning to play the violin? He is experiencing and enjoying
upgrade mechanism number two: neuroplasticity. You've all heard of neuroplasticity;
it's the brain's way of becoming smarter by building connections between neurons and strengthening those connections. And even though neurons
are obviously very, very small, all these connections
actually physically change the shape of your brain. I can't emphasize this enough, this involves every single skill
you have ever learned or will ever learn, and we know it from peer-reviewed science. Using MRI scans, neuroscientists
have seen the subtle physical changes in the brains of musicians
learning a new instrument, cab drivers learning
the geography of a different city, meditation practitioners training
their brain in a new way and all sorts of athletes. The brain is built to adapt to your needs, that's what it's designed to do, and that's upgrade mechanism number two. So, we've got a problem here,
what about this interval? We seem to have every time scale covered, we've got seconds, minutes, hours, all the way up to millions and
millions of years covered, all these three mechanisms
are working so well together, but what about this interval here? Generation to generation. This is where the story
gets a little strange and, to me, very interesting, because for a long time,
scientists were quite convinced there was no biological mechanism
for adaptation from generation to generation. We have culture, we have education,
we have events like this, these things can do a tremendous amount
in that time period, but not these three biological mechanisms;
natural selection is way too slow, you can have a random genetic mutation but you can't have it spread that quickly
through the human species. Neuroplasticity also doesn't apply here, my son can change his brain dramatically
in his lifetime, but he can't change the brain
of his future son or grandson. Or can he? Because it turns out that there is
a very peculiar biological mechanism that fits right in this interval
of generation to generation. It's called epigenetic inheritance. Epigenetic inheritance, by the way,
was just discovered, so if you haven't heard of it,
forgive yourself, it's a brand new discovery. We've known of epigenetics,
but epigenetic inheritance is really brand new to science. And what is it? It is the understanding
that anything in our lives, anything we eat, breathe,
our moods, behaviors and so forth, affects our genes and that some
of those effects on the genes can actually get passed down
to our children and grandchildren. Now, this is going to
sound nuts to you guys because we're all raised
to think about genes in a certain way, which is that you can't change your genes. And that's true,
you can't change your genes. The most fundamental thing about DNA
is that it's stable. 50% of your DNA is a perfect replica
from your mother, the other 50% is a perfect replica
from your father, but DNA comes wrapped up
in a protective package of proteins called the epigenome. "Epi" is Latin for "outside,"
so epigenome means outside the genome. Here's an illustration
of what the epigenome looks like at a magnification of about 1 million. You can see the double helix strands
of DNA wrapped around the epigenetic proteins. Now, these proteins not only protect DNA, they also influence gene expression, which means they tell genes
when to turn on and off. So we've known for a long time
that our lifestyle can influence our genes through epigenetics, what scientists just discovered through many studies now
in plants and animals is that some of those effects
can get passed down to our children. And very recently we've seen some really amazing population studies
in humans that suggest that the exact same thing
is going on in us. Now, admittedly, we do not have
the perfect examples yet in human beings. Why is that? We can't manipulate
human breeding, we can't clone humans, we can't do with humans
what we would ordinarily need to do to do these studies, but the scientists who study this
are quite convinced that epigenetic inheritance
is real and ubiquitous. So that brings us back
to this marvelous chart. Now it's complete,
we see our four upgrade mechanisms, each perfectly complementing one another and covering the entire time scale
of existence. And, by the way, these ideas are not mine. I, of course, am learning them
from scientists. Here are two scientists
I wanted to give credit to and thanks to for doing an early version of this
time scale chart and putting it all together. Why am I so obsessed with this chart, and I keep coming back to it? It's just a dry list of words, but I don't think I've ever seen an illustration that better demonstrates
how humans are built for adaptivity. We are designed to upgrade on our own,
we are self-upgradeable, we are designed to change
from moment to moment, from month to month, and year to year, from generation to generation,
and over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. We don't just inherit our biology, we also impact our biology. That's an amazing opportunity, and also a very serious burden. So what can human beings
transform themselves into? It's easy for me to stand up here and obsess about my own
middle-aged problems, my creaky bones, and fantasize about
some new high-tech solution, and we know those solutions will come. But then I think about this chart,
and I think about my son and how he's gonna transform himself over the course of his life, and some of those changes
will get passed on to his children and to their children. And thinking about that,
I am filled with a hope and a sense of awe
for this very, very old technology inside each one of us. Thank you so much. (Applause)
This is very interesting vid, thanks for sharing. I wonder if the use of psychedelics changes our genes and pass them to the next generation.
In our discussion of epigenetics, brain “connectivity” or neuroplasticity came up as an alternative avenue where psilocybin will likely leave an impact; and yes, I agreed with the point that “thewhitewallisblue” made. In this 13 minute video, David Shenk describes the more complete set of ways that the body is able to upgrade itself (including epigenetics and neuroplasticity). In my view, all the body’s upgrading capabilities trace back to the morphogenetic field that Rupert Sheldrake made famous; having to do with proto-emotion connecting to the past through Whitehead and Bergson’s concept of duration.