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00:00Think you're so smart that you'd never be led astray by superstitious thinking?
00:06Then pay close attention.
00:08This illustrates something rather curious about human nature.
00:13Whenever you see something that appears to be impossible, such as a ball rolling uphill,
00:18then your brain instantly starts to search for an explanation. So right now you might be thinking,
00:24well maybe it's magnets, or perhaps it's threats, or possibly special effects.
00:33Think you know how magician and psychologist Richard Wiseman tricked your brain with these
00:37magic marbles? You might guess CGI or magnets, but you'd be wrong.
00:44We'll find out the secret to Dr. Wiseman's trick in a minute.
00:47The fact is, when we see something we can't explain, we are not content to let it stay a mystery.
00:58It is human nature for our brains to create an explanation and fill in the blanks.
01:03And those explanations are often the root of human superstition.
01:07I definitely cannot unsee the face.
01:09Our brains are riddled with all these little quirks that warp our sense of reality.
01:14In this special series, you'll participate in mind-bending experiments that will reveal
01:20how and why human superstitions exist, and how those superstitions have impacted history.
01:27I have my prediction right here in the envelope.
01:29Shut up.
01:29Illusions of the mind have actually changed history.
01:33By examining specific cases, from seances in the White House...
01:38Your brain fabricates reality.
01:39To magical mice.
01:42As well as the predictions of Nostradamus.
01:44That's so weird.
01:45To how vampires were responsible for a plague.
01:48Which is darker, A or B?
01:50We will uncover how superstition has shaped our world.
01:54If you look back on human history, you'll see the impact playing out on a broad stage.
02:03Wrapping your head around superstition can unravel the most coveted secrets
02:07of your bleeped-up brain.
02:23Have you figured out how Richard Wiseman made these magic marbles defy gravity?
02:28Let's watch it one last time.
02:30If you're still searching for an explanation, perhaps you simply need to turn your world upside down.
02:40In fact, the reality is far simpler than that.
02:43It's all just a question of perspective.
02:49With the magic marbles, the observer is placed into a very interesting position.
02:54They see something which is simply impossible.
02:56There you have balls appearing to go up ramps.
03:00And so you are forced to try and find an explanation.
03:04Our brains cannot accept the impossible.
03:07So when no logical explanation is available, the brain invents explanations to things we don't understand.
03:14And these explanations for the impossible, rational or not, are the key to superstition.
03:20Superstitions are a kind of illusion. It's our brains seeing a pattern that isn't really there.
03:26If you are like most people, you probably have superstitious behaviors and don't even realize it.
03:35Maybe you wish on shooting stars, fallen eyelashes, or birthday candles.
03:40Or sometimes you read your horoscope, knock on wood, or wear your lucky shirt for an interview.
03:47Well, you're not alone. Superstition affects all of us.
03:51In fact, 50% of Americans admit to being superstitious.
03:56Superstition even plays a role in the history of the White House.
03:59In 1862, with the Civil War raging, President and Mrs. Lincoln suffered a devastating personal loss.
04:14In 1862, as the Civil War was in full swing, the Lincolns also had a personal tragedy that took place.
04:21They lost their son, Willie.
04:26He most likely died of typhoid.
04:29So the Lincolns were understandably wracked with grief.
04:34And this family tragedy led First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln to invite some rather unusual guests to their home
04:40in an effort to contact her lost son.
04:47Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady, participated in seances.
04:51Mary Todd Lincoln even brought psychics into the White House.
04:54Even President Lincoln joined her.
04:56Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady, the First Lady, the First Lady, the First Lady of the White House.
04:58Helping the Lincolns make contact with the dead was Lord Charles J. Colchester, a well-known psychic of the day.
05:04Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady, The First Lady of the White House.
05:05When Colchester would hold these seances, he would dim the lights.
05:09He would create a kind of mood of connecting to the other side.
05:13During the seance, Lord Colchester and his assistants beat on drums, rang bells, and played the banjo.
05:20And as they laid their instruments down, all of a sudden...
05:25Loud rapping noises were heard.
05:33Ostensibly, these noises were Willie, the deceased 11-year-old son, reconnecting and communicating with his parents.
05:41Through these promising noises, the desperate First Lady heard what she wanted to hear.
05:47First Lady Lincoln was really transfixed by these seances and really felt that she was actually making contact with her son.
05:56But Lord Colchester was a known charlatan whose paranormal gifts didn't exactly stand up to scientific scrutiny.
06:03So why, in spite of Mrs. Lincoln's understandable grief, did she refuse to believe the truth, that Lord Colchester was simply presenting an illusion?
06:13Often, our brains do not want to accept the truth.
06:18To find out how hard it is to see the truth, science writer Jeff Wise is taking to the streets of New York with another type of illusion.
06:33Look at this checkerboard pattern closely.
06:36Take a look at squares A and B.
06:40Do you see any difference between them?
06:42Do you have your answer?
06:45Let's see if people on the streets agree with you.
06:47Okay, take a look at this.
06:49Here we have a chessboard.
06:50And I just want you to tell me, which is darker, A or B?
06:54A.
06:55Definitely A.
06:56Oh.
06:57Yeah?
06:57Which is darker?
06:59A.
06:59A is darker.
07:00A is darker.
07:01A is darker.
07:02A is darker than B.
07:04Are you sure?
07:05Yes.
07:06But sometimes the brain puts what we experience in the wrong light.
07:12You're wrong.
07:14What if I told you that these squares are the exact same color?
07:18I would have to call you a liar, Jeff.
07:20The brain can often make the truth just plain hard to see.
07:26See this gray?
07:28It matches A and it matches B.
07:33A and B are actually the same color.
07:37Oh, wow.
07:38What the heck?
07:39So A and B are the same shade.
07:41How did that...
07:42Believe it or not, there's a reason we see the squares differently, even when they're the same.
07:48The reason square B appears lighter is because our brain assumes it's in shadow and automatically compensates.
07:55The brain subconscious automatically processes visual information before you perceive it consciously.
08:02In many ways, our brain is a machine that walks through certain procedures and checks them off.
08:08And that shadow makes all the difference to our bleeped up brain.
08:12Even when you show people that A and B are the same, they have a hard time accepting the truth.
08:18Now that you know that they're the same shade, do they look the same now?
08:22No.
08:23They still look different.
08:24Yeah.
08:24Yeah, they still look a lot different.
08:26They look a lot different.
08:27It matches.
08:28It's so weird.
08:28At the end of the day, our bleeped up brain can just be stubborn and lead us to believe simply what we want to believe, regardless of the facts.
08:41Likewise, if Mary Todd Lincoln truly thought that she could communicate with her dead son, knowing that Lord Colchester was a fraud would not stop her from believing this superstition.
08:51We could say that Mary Todd Lincoln was fooled by a magic trick by Lord Colchester, but in some ways, Lord Colchester is beside the point.
09:00When you really want to believe something, you will find reasons to believe it.
09:06But while Lord Colchester gave Mary Todd Lincoln hope, President Lincoln was less than transfixed.
09:14Eventually, Lord Colchester was banished from the White House and never heard from again.
09:21Superstitions often satisfy a person's desperate need to explain misfortunes in their life.
09:27But superstitions that comfort some seem like nonsense to others.
09:33Every brain is generally hardwired the same way, but there are slight differences in each of us.
09:39And this might help explain why Mary Todd Lincoln believed one thing, while others, including her husband, did not.
09:45But Mary Todd Lincoln continued to consult with psychic mediums up until her death in 1882.
09:54And she is not alone.
09:57Many of us possess objects that we believe to be lucky.
10:00Some believe that breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck, or that walking under a ladder may have terrible consequences.
10:07Throughout history, our brain's innate need to find meaning has sometimes led us to superstitious conclusions in both our everyday lives and on the world stage.
10:21The lesson from all this is, don't trust what your brain tells you all the time.
10:27And the superstitious explanations our brains create can be downright astonishing.
10:32Don't let a black cat cross your path.
10:40Make sure you knock on wood if you've jinxed yourself.
10:43And whatever you do, don't open an umbrella inside.
10:47The world is filled with superstitions.
10:50But these seemingly odd ways to ward off bad luck and protect yourself make perfect sense in one very surprising place.
10:57Your bleeped up brain.
10:59The lesson from all this is, don't trust what your brain tells you all the time.
11:05Our brains are problem-solving machines.
11:08And when confronted with a situation, they will plot a solution.
11:11But sometimes that solution is made when we don't have all the information.
11:16And that can make for some bizarre situations.
11:19It's rare for us to end up believing something that simply isn't so.
11:24But when it does happen, it can have a profound effect on an individual.
11:29They can end up buying into certain theories about the world which simply aren't true.
11:36In fact, we're about to make something disappear right before your eyes.
11:40Get ready for a simple experiment that will show you just how easy it is for your brain to miss out on information.
11:46Take a look at this animation.
11:50Move so that you're directly in front of the television, about 5 feet away.
11:55Close your left eye and focus your right eye on the small dot.
11:59Move around a bit.
12:01At some point, you will see the large moving dot completely disappear.
12:06See it?
12:06Or not see it?
12:07This is a blind spot.
12:10And it represents the precise part in your eye where an optic nerve prevents information from entering your retina.
12:17And the reason we rarely stumble across this information gap is because your brain usually fabricates the missing data in moments like this.
12:25In essence, your mind creates something that isn't there.
12:29And that is a key to superstitious thinking.
12:38When something is hidden from view, it's very easy to be drawn to erroneous conclusions about cause and effect.
12:45For centuries, anything that couldn't be explained through logic was labeled as magic.
12:51That's because your brain essentially works in a cause and effect way.
12:55But when no clear cause is visible, you will still create one.
13:00And before modern science shed light on the mysteries of nature, a number of strange theories were presented to explain the world around us.
13:08One idea is so strange that you might find it hard to believe.
13:14People believe that animals were generated through a magical process called spontaneous generation.
13:21Spontaneous generation is the process by which inanimate material gives rise to living things, like frogs from marsh slime, eels from river water, or maggots from rotting meat.
13:32In the 1600s, Flemish scientist Jan Baptista von Helmut published a scientific recipe for creating mice.
13:42He took a container, and in it he put some soiled underclothes, and he added wheat.
13:50He put this container in a corner, and he left it for 21 days.
13:54When he came back, he observed full-grown mice.
13:59This, for him, was proof.
14:01He thought he found an effective recipe for generating mice.
14:07Even in the age before modern science, how could anyone really believe that soiled underwear and wheat could actually grow mice?
14:15The answer lies in your superstitious brain.
14:18Magician Ekaterina Dobrokatova's got a trick up her sleeve that shows how your mind will fill in the blanks, sometimes with shocking conclusions.
14:36We magicians roll a little bit differently than you guys with our money.
14:39I have here one, two, three, four single dollar bills.
14:45Now, you can't go really far with this, so depending on my needs, I have to literally transform the bills.
14:49Now, watch closely.
14:50One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, and four hundred dollars.
14:56Wait.
14:57Hang on.
14:58How did she do that?
15:00Let's see that again.
15:01I have one, two, three, and four American dollar bills.
15:07Now, you can't do a lot in New York City with four bills, okay?
15:12Life here is a little bit expensive, so watch really closely, because the magic happens in a blink of an eye.
15:19Wow.
15:19Now, tell me if you saw that.
15:22You didn't say that.
15:23You were watching closely, right?
15:24Yeah.
15:24We know that it isn't possible to change a one dollar bill into a one hundred dollar bill, but like Von Helmont, who thought he had a recipe for mice, these participants weren't watching closely enough, and we bet you weren't either.
15:38Nobody saw it happen.
15:39No, we didn't see it happen.
15:40That's a very lucrative trick.
15:43We have no difficulty transforming a hundred dollars into one dollar.
15:48Amazing.
15:54This money-changing routine is astonishing because of what we can't see happening.
15:59I'm not actually transforming the money, but in magic, seeing is believing.
16:05And through a sleight of hand that's too fast for the brain to register, Ekaterina crafts the perception that she's literally changing the money, when in fact, she's holding all eight bills at once.
16:17In reality, this trick isn't a financial windfall.
16:22Likewise, with his recipes to spontaneously generate mice, Von Helmont also had a blind spot.
16:31He believed in spontaneous generation, and since he didn't see the mice climb into the jar, he assumed they just appeared.
16:40His mind was working on a cause and effect basis.
16:44He just got the cause wrong.
16:46But now we know appearances can be deceiving.
16:50Last night, I saw a raccoon in my garbage can.
16:55That doesn't mean that the garbage can produced the raccoon, but it's easy to see how someone could find that line of evidence compelling.
17:02Von Helmont got it wrong with the mice, but he is not the first to draw false conclusions.
17:09Before Galileo proved that all objects fall at the same speed, people believed that heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones.
17:18That's because people draw conclusions based on what they perceive, whether it's true or not.
17:25It's the same reason many people believe celebrities die in threes, which is another good example of how human brains seek patterns out of random events.
17:35The truth is, death takes celebrities all the time.
17:40We only start looking for the patterns when it is brought to our attention with a major news story.
17:46Our superstitious minds find logical conclusions even when they don't exist.
17:52Do you get a little nervous on Friday the 13th?
17:56Think your cat has nine lives?
17:58Or avoid cracks in the sidewalk for fear they will break your mother's back?
18:03What might seem like nonsense now was accepted as completely rational at one point in history or another.
18:10That's because all superstitions are the brain's attempt to solve a problem.
18:15And sometimes our problem solving can be a little off.
18:18Take two, ready?
18:20To prove it, psychologist Richard Wiseman has set up a dragon that will make your head turn.
18:26See if you can solve this problem.
18:29I'd like to show you something truly remarkable.
18:31Right now the dragon is staring directly at you.
18:34But what's incredible is as the camera starts to move around, the dragon will continue to look at you.
18:40Now you might think this is a really sophisticated piece of technology or an incredible puppet.
18:46In fact, the secret to the dragon exists entirely inside your head.
18:50The dragon is nothing more than a cutout.
18:53There's no moving parts, there's no fancy trickery.
18:56What is important is that it has an inverted face.
19:00Your brain is seeing that inverted face and converting it into an amazing moving illusion.
19:06It's just another example of how your brain fabricates reality.
19:10So why do we see this illusion?
19:13The brain trips you up.
19:15It's used to seeing faces which come out.
19:18It isn't used to seeing a hollow face.
19:20And so when it's faced with the physics of a hollow face, it doesn't know what to do.
19:25And it solves the problem by creating a head that moves around as you move as an observer.
19:30So it creates this impossible situation simply because it's made one false assumption.
19:37Sometimes our brains just can't solve the problem.
19:40And believe it or not, a phenomenon like this led to one of the most perplexing discoveries in the history of space exploration.
19:48It all started in 1975 when NASA sent the Viking orbiter to Mars.
20:00Part of the mission was to find out if Mars had ever harbored life.
20:05The Viking orbiter started the first ever detailed observation of the Martian surface.
20:13The Viking program returned 50,000 photographs of Mars.
20:17And it seemed very clear that life does not exist on Mars.
20:22However, one curious photograph the Viking orbiter snapped in 1976 seemed to contradict that assertion.
20:31What this photograph seemed to show was a giant face a mile wide.
20:40Was it some kind of ancient temple?
20:43Some kind of vast alien artwork?
20:48It didn't seem like a natural formation.
20:51It seemed like something that someone had built.
20:56When NASA released the image to the public, it set off a media firestorm.
21:01To the popular press, it was a sensation.
21:04To the public, this thing must have been created by not just intelligent organisms, but by an advanced civilization.
21:12And they wanted proof that it was real.
21:17In 1998, NASA finally sent another orbiter.
21:22This spacecraft was able to return and take photographs of the same place where a Viking had seen the face.
21:28What the photographs showed conclusively was that the face on Mars was really just an eroded rocky hill.
21:38Despite overwhelming evidence that intelligent life never existed anywhere on the red planet,
21:44millions of people believed this giant face indicated the existence of ancient aliens.
21:50But why?
22:00Science journalist Jeff Wise has a photograph that might help answer that question.
22:05I'm going to show you an old photograph. I just want you to tell me what you see.
22:09Describe what you see in this vintage photograph.
22:13Let's see what others perceive.
22:15It looks like three people, a woman in the back with a very large hat, a man in a suit on the left,
22:23and then there appears to be a face in between the both of them.
22:27There is a face in the middle of the photograph, and there's people behind the face.
22:32There's a seated man, and in front of her is a disembodied floating face.
22:37How do you describe this big face?
22:40Let's see what others say.
22:41It looks like Jesus.
22:43Look, there's the Goldilocks hair, and he's looking up.
22:46Oh, I didn't even see her. I just saw a face.
22:48Yeah.
22:49He's got like, it looks like a wig like the judges in England wear, right here.
22:52Okay.
22:53This is wig.
22:54Uh-huh.
22:55There's a mustache, like a handle-mall mustache, and he's got like a little beard here,
22:59and big eyebrows, and his head is much bigger than this guy and his girl.
23:02What kind of scene do you think this could be portrayed? This is just a photograph.
23:05Well, it looks to me that somebody added this head in there. Sort of like, you know, you can Photoshop nowadays.
23:12But the culprit that placed this disembodied head onto the photograph is your bleeped-up brain.
23:18What if I told you that there is no giant face in this picture?
23:24I wouldn't believe you.
23:25Okay, you see it?
23:26I see it. It's right there.
23:27Okay.
23:28If there is no face, what is there?
23:32There's a woman, there's a man, and in the man's lap there's a baby.
23:39I don't see that at all.
23:40You don't see that at all? You still see the big face?
23:42I still see the big face.
23:44I have no idea what you're talking about.
23:46Tell me what you see.
23:47I don't see a baby.
23:49Sometimes, to see reality for what it really is, our brains may need a little help.
23:53I want to show you a prop.
24:00Oh my God, it's a baby.
24:01Look.
24:02Right there.
24:03Stop it!
24:04See?
24:06What?
24:08Maybe I can ask you to come forward again.
24:09And that's, and show me like that.
24:10So that is the bonnet, and there's the baby outfit.
24:14Oh my God, I see it now.
24:17That's crazy.
24:19I do see the baby now, but when I take that away, I still see it.
24:22I still see it.
24:23I still see the face.
24:25This photograph reveals a peculiar secret of the brain.
24:29We see faces everywhere.
24:31We see faces in clouds.
24:32We see faces in trees.
24:33We see them in tortillas.
24:35It's a phenomenon called pareidolia.
24:38Pareidolia can affect us in everyday ways, and play a role in our superstitious brains.
24:43I guess this is how people sometimes think they're seeing things when they're not.
24:47Like they see a ghost in their house.
24:49It could be, I mean, it's not a ghost, you could be seeing one of these.
24:53So why are we humans prone to pareidolia?
24:55As part of our evolutionary past, we're hardwired to see faces even where there aren't any actually there.
25:03And the most important thing that a human being can see in his or her environment is the face of our fellow human beings.
25:12We need to know what the faces of the people around us are doing.
25:15Are they happy? Are they sad? Are they suspicious?
25:17We have to have this information.
25:20This vintage photograph shows the brain's default to see faces everywhere.
25:24Even though here, the face is just an effect of light and shadow.
25:29Can anyone unsee the face?
25:31I definitely cannot unsee the face.
25:33That's the first thing that I see.
25:36Likewise, with Viking's iconic photo from Mars,
25:40Pareidolia deceived people into seeing a massive alien face.
25:43Even I, knowing that that face on Mars is a trick of light and shadow.
25:50When I look at that picture, I see it.
25:53And to this day, people continue to see faces in the unlikeliest places.
25:58In 2012, people saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in a tree in New Jersey.
26:04They prayed to the tree, they gathered round and lit candles.
26:07In 2008, a grilled cheese sandwich with the likeness of the Virgin Mary sold on eBay for $28,000.
26:17The face on Mars and all the other faces we see everywhere every day are just another function of our superstitious brains.
26:26Do you cross your fingers because you think it will help a wish come true?
26:31We've seen that the brain can't accept what seems impossible.
26:36No matter how bizarre, our minds must concoct an explanation to give order to the chaos we experience around us.
26:44Our very survival and safety depends on order being achieved.
26:49And the chaos that we see does not just revolve around the world we see now.
26:53It can and often does include the future.
26:58And predicting what the future holds might just be one of our greatest superstitions.
27:08Imagine trying to predict what will happen in the year 2400.
27:13Will there be flying cars? A cure for cancer?
27:17Looking that far ahead is a daunting task even for today's greatest visionaries.
27:21But in the 16th century, one Frenchman looked into the future with hair-raising accuracy.
27:30Nostradamus.
27:33Nostradamus is said to have predicted many things including the French Revolution, the Apollo moon landing, the bombing of Hiroshima.
27:41In his book The Prophecies, Nostradamus also foretold the rise of several notorious antichrists.
27:47He said the first antichrist was an emperor born near Italy who would rise from a soldier to an emperor.
27:54Over 200 years later, that soldier, born on the island of Corsica just off the coast of Italy, emerged as the French emperor.
28:02He did seem to predict Napoleon Bonaparte.
28:05In his conquest of Europe during the 19th century, Napoleon's wars cost the lives of 6.5 million people.
28:14For the second antichrist, Nostradamus envisioned the existence of the world's most infamous villain.
28:20He said that the second antichrist would be a captain of greater Germany and he would use the name history.
28:33He said that he would seduce troops with his tongue.
28:38Many people took that to mean that Nostradamus had in fact predicted the rise of Adolf Hitler.
28:44Hitler was known for being a charismatic speaker and seducing crowds and getting people riled up.
28:50It's a perfect fit.
28:54How did Nostradamus predict the rise of both Napoleon and Adolf Hitler?
28:58Did he possess paranormal powers?
29:02Is it possible to see into the future?
29:04Some say it is.
29:06And it is much easier to predict if you already know the answer.
29:15Our magician Ekaterina Dabrokatova has devised a trick that will let her see into the future.
29:21Even if only a minute or two into the future.
29:23Do you believe me if I tell you that I can predict what you're going to do one minute into the future?
29:29Yes, I kind of do.
29:31Yes?
29:32Alright, so that's a good start for me.
29:34Ekaterina lays out six cards on a table.
29:37Five with pictures of celebrities and one with a picture of herself.
29:41By looking into the future, Ekaterina says she can predict which card a person will pick.
29:47And I have my prediction right here in the envelope.
29:49I'm going to place it on the table so it's in plain view the whole time.
29:53Yep.
29:54I want you to think about a number between one and six.
29:56I don't want you to be influenced by anything.
29:58Name it right now.
29:59Four.
30:00Number four. Perfect.
30:01You're confident with your decision?
30:02I am.
30:03And I committed myself as well with this prediction.
30:06Every card has a number.
30:07So I am actually number three.
30:09You didn't pick me.
30:10I'm sorry.
30:12Beyonce is number five.
30:14Julia Roberts is number two.
30:16Lady Gaga is number one.
30:18All right.
30:19So you picked Angelina Jolie, which is number four.
30:22This is the envelope.
30:23I haven't touched it.
30:24Oh, Lord.
30:25Okay, I'm stressed right now.
30:26Go ahead.
30:27Take it out.
30:28My business card contains on the back the name written by my hand.
30:32Shut up.
30:34What does it say?
30:35What does it say?
30:36Can you tell everyone?
30:37Angelina Jolie.
30:39Oh, my God.
30:40That's crazy.
30:41And it's number four.
30:43Does Ekaterina really have the paranormal power to predict what people will choose?
30:48Not exactly.
30:49This is a classic trick.
30:51It's called card forcing.
30:53No matter what number a person chooses, Ekaterina will always get the answer right.
30:58That's because there are only two possible answers.
31:02Angelina Jolie or Ekaterina herself.
31:06It just depends on how Ekaterina decides to count out your number.
31:10Whatever your choice is, Ekaterina can use your number to count the six cards in any direction she likes.
31:16All in order to arrive at either her business card or Angelina Jolie's name on the business card.
31:24Name the number.
31:25Number six.
31:26Three.
31:27Four.
31:28Five.
31:29Six.
31:30Now, in this envelope, I have the business card of that celebrity.
31:32So right here, I have my business card.
31:35And there is no other business card in the envelope.
31:37Oh!
31:38That's pretty cool.
31:39I don't know how you did that.
31:40I mean, I could have picked two.
31:42By stacking the deck and manipulating the numbers, Ekaterina appears to pull off the impossible.
31:48Card forcing helps me to predict the outcome.
31:52I think you predicted it.
31:53Yeah?
31:54Yeah.
31:55I think you did.
31:56I don't think it was a coincidence.
31:57I definitely believe that people have psychic ability and ability to predict the future.
32:02I mean, you just did it.
32:04This blew me away and confirmed everything I thought before.
32:08That it was written down before.
32:10I actually think that made it so much more real for me.
32:13This card trick makes predicting the future seem possible.
32:17But as with Nostradamus, believing in these predictions depends on how someone wants to interpret these predictions.
32:24Nostradamus' writings shouldn't be considered predictions.
32:28They're post-dictions.
32:29The idea is that you're starting with the answer and you're working backwards.
32:34Psychologists call this phenomenon hindsight bias.
32:38Meaning, after the unpredictable happens, you think you knew what was going to happen all along.
32:45This happens to us in everyday life.
32:47When a sports team wins and we say, I knew that was going to happen.
32:51Hindsight bias occurs even when the anticipated event was totally unpredictable at the time.
32:56You were going to pick Angelina Jolie.
32:58You were going to pick Angelina Jolie.
32:59I would have.
33:00Weird.
33:01And this psychological phenomenon happens all the time when we look back on history and analyze events.
33:08Some believe author Morgan Robertson predicted the sinking of the Titanic in his novel Futility.
33:15Because it foretold the sinking of a massive liner called the Titan in the North Atlantic, 14 years before the actual Titanic sank.
33:23But this was just an incredible coincidence.
33:27And for that reason, we should look at Nostradamus' prophecies with a little more scrutiny.
33:34The story about Napoleon, for example, is incredibly vague.
33:38It could apply to just about anybody.
33:40Can it apply to Napoleon?
33:41Yes.
33:42Could it also apply to any number of other leaders?
33:45Absolutely.
33:46And as for his second Antichrist.
33:49Of course, many people took Hister to refer to Hitler, but it doesn't.
33:55It's actually the Latin name of the Danube River.
33:58Hindsight bias is a tool used by your brain.
34:02By believing you knew what was going to happen, your brain is helping bring order to a chaotic world around you.
34:08It's just another feature of the bleeped-up brain.
34:12What we believe is all a part of our superstitious mind.
34:17Have you ever tried to ward off an evil spirit?
34:21Wear garlic around your neck?
34:23Or perhaps carry a lucky charm?
34:25These are superstitions.
34:27The brain's way of protecting us from chaos.
34:30We've created superstitions for virtually every situation.
34:34One topic in particular has always been shrouded in superstition.
34:39Death.
34:46The English once cut off the feet of their dead so they couldn't leave their graves to haunt the living.
34:52Tombstones are made of heavy granite or marble to weigh down the spirits who might try and rise.
35:00And one misinterpretation of what happens after death created a monster hunt across Europe.
35:07People have a total morbid, I would say, fascination with vampires.
35:20But being a vampire wasn't always so cool.
35:24Recently, archaeologists unearthed some entombed skeletons in Bulgaria.
35:29The skeletons themselves were unremarkable, but what really was strange was that their teeth had been pulled out,
35:38they were underneath the church, and they had iron rods rammed through their chests.
35:43Why did these real vampires come to such a violent end?
35:48This all happened in the context of the bubonic plague.
35:53The bubonic plague inspired fear across Europe.
36:03But there were some who brushed shoulders with death more than others.
36:06Gravediggers actually had a hard time disposing of all the bodies that were taken by the plague.
36:12They had to open up existing graves and then put in new bodies on top of already decomposing bodies.
36:19In this gruesome endeavor, the gravediggers encountered the inexplicable.
36:25They saw something they had never seen before.
36:29These bodies had apparently grown in size.
36:32Their faces were flushed, and they appeared to have blood running down their faces out of their mouths.
36:39In this age before modern science, the gravediggers decided there was only one logical conclusion.
36:45They thought that these corpses had actually risen up, gone out, and consumed human blood.
36:53And they thought that these were vampires.
36:56The Middle Ages were a lethal time in history.
36:59And that exposure bred the fear of death and the undead into the living.
37:05And that fear led our ancestors to believe in vampires.
37:09And our brains aren't so different today.
37:13They will always find a way to explain what they see.
37:23To prove it, science journalist Jeff Wise wants you to tell us what you see in this image.
37:30Go on. What does this look like?
37:32Let's see what others think.
37:36Just tell me what you see.
37:40Dead animal. Roadkill.
37:42Roadkill.
37:44Could be a leaf. Up close, this would be the stem.
37:47Okay. I saw a dead fox. Just the image of a fox jumped out at me.
37:52Hmm. I'm gonna go for dragon.
37:54So this is the head. It's got some horns here, some ears.
37:59It could be a futuristic spacecraft.
38:01That's the retro rocket at the back which propels them in this direction.
38:05I see.
38:06This is the command module up the top here.
38:09Looks like a squashed insect.
38:10Somebody's stood on it, splattered out all over the ground.
38:13You guys often see things differently?
38:15Well, we've only been married for 44 years, and yes, we see things differently.
38:17Of course, we all see things very differently, and in 1921, Swiss psychiatrist Herman Rorschach designed a test that shed light on how and why people interpret what they see so differently.
38:32The Rorschach test.
38:34The Rorschach test is a classic psychological tool. It's just a random blob of ink.
38:39Though this image is just an inkblot, no one could see the image as what it actually is.
38:44This is really nothing more than just a blob of ink on paper.
38:49A blob of ink. That's crazy.
38:52Doesn't mean anything. It's just random.
38:54And yet you were able to see all these different things in that randomness.
38:58What do you think that tells you about your brain?
39:00Um, I think it tells me that's desperate to impose order on everything it sees.
39:05I think that chaos is a really hard concept to deal with for most of us.
39:09Also, it likes dragons.
39:11Our superstitious brain predisposes us to make meaning out of these random inkblots and create patterns where they don't exist.
39:21The reason the Rorschach test is so interesting is that it shows that our brains are meaning-making machines.
39:27Why do you think the brain is able to find so many different meanings in this one image?
39:35Oh, from your lifetime experiences, I guess.
39:37And when you look at something like that, you just draw on all that.
39:41And out it comes.
39:42So when the gravediggers in the Middle Ages encountered these seemingly reanimated corpses, they also drew their conclusions from a lifetime of hearing vampire stories.
39:55You can understand that in an effort to make sense of this apparently unbelievable event, the gravediggers created this narrative of this is the undead, right?
40:08These are vampires rising up out of the grave.
40:11And people believed that would keep them pinched to their graves at night.
40:14From history's strangest events to legendary monsters, superstitions have impacted our lives for thousands of years.
40:25We cross our fingers, something good happens, and we think somehow the superstitious ritual caused a positive event.
40:32It's the price you pay for being so successful, and because of that, we all tend to harbor superstitious beliefs, beliefs that simply aren't true.
40:39But just in case superstitions are true, don't forget to wear your lucky hat to the next game, and watch out for black hats crossing your path.
40:50Because no matter how odd superstitions may seem, they make perfect sense to your bleeped-up brain.