Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
11 - Playing Music with Brainwaves? | Tom Deuel, creator of the Encephalophone
21 Plays27 days ago
It has long been a dream of science fiction to enable us to do things just with our thought. We envision operating machinery, controlling robots, or communicating telepathically. Today's guest, Tom Deuel, took us one step closer to this future with his invention - the Encephalophone.
The Encephalophone is a brain-computer interface that enables its user to play music just by thinking about it. By analyzing brain activity via EEG in real time, the Encephalophone converts brainwaves to sound, creating melodies, rhythms, patterns, without the push of a single key.
The applications of Tom's brainchild, which started as an art project, are not just creative, but might help patients with aphasia or severe motor disabilities to retrain their brains and speed up their recovery.
In this episode, Gerry and Tom explore the conception of the encephalophone from dream to reality, its artistic and therapeutic potential, and what the future of this fascinating project looks like.
//
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
SUBSTACK - NEVER MISS NEW RELEASES - SIGN UP TO OUR MAILING LIST
INSTAGRAM // FACEBOOK // THREADS
STAY SAFE
//
Recommended
Transcript
Meeting Tom Duhl: A Journey Through Neurology, Music, and Science
00:00:00
Speaker
So I'm talking with Tom Duhl, an old friend of mine who we met 20 years ago, long time ago. all right More than that. um as thing As one does in a bar. um A kind of a magical place that was open late where a interesting odd characters and misfits met over beer, wine, and other things, which was wonderful, like a great environment to have out-of-the-box conversations. and I think that's where we first started talking long ago in Boston.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah. And ah maybe you could tell me a bit about yourself as a as a clinician and multi-talented, multilingual person interested in lots of things.
00:00:52
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So I am a a neurologist and a neuroscientist and a musician and sort always had this ah push and pull between my creative and intellectual sides. And I think all these things have kind of somewhat come together recently, although it's still a struggle. But that's how I would identify as a musician and a neuroscientist and a neurologist. Which is a really interesting recipe.
00:01:28
Speaker
And you were trained as MD-PhD at Yale. in Harvard. At Harvard. Yeah. and But then you did a residency at Yale. I did an internship at Yale. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. and discovered that you really like the practice of medicine, but that in some ways you're more of an artist. You're more driven by creativity and by finding problems, not necessarily repeatedly fixing the same problem, which is a challenge if your job as a clinician and provider is to repeatedly fix problems.
00:02:02
Speaker
there's a certain creativity lacking, at least for you as an artist in that kind of a life,
Art vs. Science: Commonalities and Tom's Medical Journey
00:02:08
Speaker
right? Yeah, yes. ah Well, I think i was drawn early to both ah creative practice, art, music, audio art, and science. And I was drawn to both of them because of their commonality.
00:02:28
Speaker
And the commonality I see is the creative practice in good science and good art are not that far off. And I think they've been somewhat artificially separated in modern society.
00:02:41
Speaker
wasn't that long ago that we had Leonardo da Vinci and others that that kind of combined these things. And for me, it seemed kind of natural. So I was kind of driven mostly by that. And I think that going into medicine was, well, one, it was partially a practical choice, but another was the part of science that I didn't find as engaging was the lack of direct application to people and and real direct connection to people's problems. Yes, you were solving potentially things that would help huge numbers of people, but I really enjoyed the direct interaction. And so
00:03:20
Speaker
I think that's how I ended up in medicine. But if anything of those three parts of me, if you imagine a pie graph of me, the slice that is doctor probably the thinnest.
00:03:33
Speaker
And the the reason I did end up there was one practical and also just the the human interaction.
What is the Encephalophone? An Artistic Creation Turned Medical Tool
00:03:41
Speaker
But the slices that are the scientists and the artists in me are are much larger, at least in terms of My spiritual makeup. Right. And then to your credit, you've actually not, you've not sat with that as just a fact that you have to cope with, but you've turned that creative energy into inventions, um which many people don't know i have the opportunity to do, or they're just not that interested or the research questions that keep pushing you both bother you enough that you want it to do something novel and interesting. And so that's where we come to your device, the encephalophone. So could you talk a bit about what that is? And so as we um launch this podcast, we will have a link to your YouTube.
00:04:27
Speaker
So to have more detailed, if anyone wants to follow up, people can see like what actually you've done. But if just describe it in words. Sure. So... The Encephalphone is a brain-computer interface. brain-computer interface is just a device that uses a brain signal to directly control a computer or an output device.
00:04:54
Speaker
So the Encephalphone is a brain-computer interface that uses EEG or brain waves, if you will, to control sound. and more specifically music.
00:05:06
Speaker
So you are controlling the pitch of a musical tone through through your thoughts. and That's via EEG um motor imagery. So you're thinking about movement or not movement, and it is controlling the pitch of a of of a musical tone. So one way to think of it is a auditory and musical brain computer interface. Another way to think of it is a ah musical instrument that is controlled directly by brainwaves as opposed to through your, your muscles, your, your fingers, your voice.
00:05:45
Speaker
um A third way to think about it is a musical prosthetic because I've begun to use it for people who have motor disability and to enable them to produce music on their own when they might not be able to do so because of their motor disability.
00:06:03
Speaker
So first of all, this is wild, right? This is like the X-Men. it's It's like a, it's a sci-fi goal. People have been thinking about this since, you know, Jules Verne, I mean, it's the idea that you know you could use thoughts to to control the world or movement. is It's been a goal of science fiction for decades and decades.
00:06:24
Speaker
Like, can't we why can't we do this? And you've actually provided now the first example, to me, this seems like it's the first example of actual brain-computer interface, in this case, music.
00:06:35
Speaker
but you could imagine a million other applications where the computer software would operate machinery or would drive truck or something, any anything, right? yeah Because once you have the interface in place, presumably training the person with appropriate thought, you know, you get the normal control. where You could learn to do almost anything without simply with your thoughts. Well, that that is my goal for the future. And just to be fair and to give credit where credit is due, brain-computer interfaces have been been undergoing research for a good 60 years. And I am not even close to the first person to do ah a brain-computer interface that works at some level.
00:07:21
Speaker
But the vast majority of brain-computer interfaces have been directed towards moving a cursor on a screen or moving a robot arm. What's unique about mine is it is controlling music in real time and music specifically, not just sound, but music in real time, not later.
00:07:43
Speaker
And part of the reason that people hadn't been doing that is quite simply no one or very few people were concerned with creating musical ability and people who have have motor disability.
Impact on Musicians with Disabilities: A Transformative Experience
00:07:59
Speaker
They're more concerned with their more immediate needs, which would be being able to speak, being able to move, having mobility. These are all important things, and that's what research has been focused on.
00:08:09
Speaker
think the reason I arrived at it through music was not because I wanted to create a better brain-computer interface that would suddenly help people with motor disability. If I'm going to be completely honest, it started off as just an art project. I thought it would be really neat combining my auditory art practice with my neuroscience and neurology practice as a neurophysiologist.
00:08:38
Speaker
I thought it' would be really neat to combine these two things and kind of create ah this this experimental musical instrument. Let's see what we can do with that. It was only later that i in my medical practice, began to see, oh, I could actually use this to help out some of these people that I'm seeing who have a stroke or other motor disability. And then it kind of inspired me to make it more of a...
00:09:04
Speaker
scientifically viable and verifiable device to help people out of motor disability. But if I'm going to be completely honest, it started off as just a oh an art project music experiment, an art project. Well, I mean, if you think it's potentially a new musical form, right? You could imagine two, three or more people like this with brain-computer interfaces playing jazz. I mean, it's that's what jazz is. Yeah.
00:09:28
Speaker
Right. It's just jazz without hands. Right. Well, in fact, ah back in 2019, we put on a concert with two quadriplegic musicians playing jazz in real time. I think it's which is wild. That's wild. Right. One with a it was wild. and it was It was probably the most satisfying thing I've done with this ever.
00:09:56
Speaker
because had these two individuals who had been musicians before their injuries and um they have extremely limited ability to communicate with the world in any way.
00:10:09
Speaker
One of them couldn't even speak anymore, but for them, expressing expressing themselves through music is incredibly important part of their their life and their lifestyle and quality of life. and They had wheelchairs and they had other things to help them out with. They had other devices to help with communication, but they had lost their musical ability. And to see them be able to play music in real time and express themselves it was a gift it's just incredible. That's amazing.
00:10:44
Speaker
I'm sure it was transformative for them. like It gave them a sense of possibility where they that had been closed off, right? Yeah. i Yes, and in fact, they expressed that, but it's selfishly for me, that was the that was the the most amazing experience ever just because I i could you know bring this to fruition and and and I just saw the joy it brought to them. It's just unbelievable just to watch them light up at at this ability to do something they had never done before.
Can Music and the Encephalophone Aid Stroke Recovery?
00:11:17
Speaker
And that's sort of the light bulb that went off over my head in the in the hospital when I had had that that made me decide to turn this into a, uh, a device to help people with motor disability.
00:11:33
Speaker
Before then it had just been, pretty much an art project. Um, I had, uh, had a few patients who, for whom music was not just a pastime, but some were professional musicians and others were,
00:11:48
Speaker
um just very enthusiastic amateurs for whom the music was the most important thing in their life and they had had strokes. I had a music professor who had a stroke, he was a drummer and he could no longer be a drummer and it just dawned on me, I told him about my project, it dawned on me that I could right then hook him up to the encephalophone and have him play music again and he had just lost his ability and and that that kind of changed things and so then my focus became a little more sort of medical, scientific, still artistic, I still want to produce concerts and I think that's
00:12:30
Speaker
that in and of itself is is worth a huge amount but i would as you had sort of suggested like to take this to a place where once someone gets good at producing music without movement we could then tie that music to another function and that could be driving a wheelchair it could be um speaking uh words for someone who who uh who has lost their ability to speak or it might be moving a robot arm.
00:13:01
Speaker
Use that power of music to get them enthusiastic and continually training and learning the device. and Once they get good enough, we could then add other their function to it. so A friend of mine, um Deb Meyerson, was a professor at Stanford and she had a stroke at a young age.
00:13:22
Speaker
and had a lot of resources and a very supportive husband who helped her recover much of her ability and formed an organization called Stroke Forward, which is about recovery of stroke patients. But she found, interestingly, that she could sometimes sing or hum things that she could not speak.
00:13:37
Speaker
Like somehow her musical ability returned or was almost an aid to learning how to speak, but humming something first let her speak it more. So would you say like the encephalophone in particular would help this kind of person who uses music as a way to recover their speech ability?
00:13:55
Speaker
Yes, for for sure. there are There are overlaps and there are separate circuits for verbal language and musical language, but they they also share and have overlap. and Music can be another pathway to help restore some of the language circuits that we have.
00:14:15
Speaker
um This is not my work, but a A particular researcher comes to mind, Gottfried Schlag, he has done a whole lot of work on aphasia post-stroke patients and music's ability to help people regain their speech through the indirect pathway of musical speech. because me Music is...
00:14:40
Speaker
like spoken language evolved in in humans as a form of expression. And in a sense, they're not that different. They're both ways for us to communicate ideas through sound.
00:14:55
Speaker
And it can be really helpful to use music as an intermediary. And it is also extremely motivating. That's one of the reasons that I continue to to push this is that Even more than than words, music has been shown to be incredibly motivating for people.
00:15:14
Speaker
And it keeps them going through those times when it's difficult and they they're not so accurate and they're not able to get things out. that The music helps keep them forward. So it's ah it's a great pathway. In
Limitations and Benefits: Who Can Use the Encephalophone?
00:15:26
Speaker
fact, when I have stroke patients, and I'm not the first one to do that, I i think Gottfried Schlag was the...
00:15:34
Speaker
One of the pioneers in this is I'll have a patient who has aphasia, they can't speak and I'll just sing happy birthday with them. And they will, a lot of them will be able to say, sing happy birthday with all the words perfectly in place. Now that we are singing happy birthday together, which in and of itself is pretty amazing to do with a person who can't speak and they they get really excited. Everyone knows happy birthday.
00:15:57
Speaker
Now you start changing the words and you find that the, the vocal language is a pathway that you can be used when the purely verbal language doesn't work. And so now I can say, would you like some orange juice? Would you like some orange juice? And they can reply, yes, I'd like some orange juice. That's amazing.
00:16:21
Speaker
when they may not be able to speak that. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's it's ah it's a great way to use music to bridge the gap with language difficulties. What do you think would be limitations of the encephalophone for classes of patients? Are there types of brain injury for which this would not be a helpful therapeutic?
00:16:40
Speaker
Sure. Well, I'm using the sensory motor cortex. And so if there's enough damage to sensory motor cortex, i I can't use that. but sometimes with stroke or Often with stroke patients, it's unilateral, it's one side, so I could use the other side. um But if someone had both of both sides damaged to a certain point, it would not be useful for that.
00:17:02
Speaker
It would not be useful for, sometimes there's enough cognitive effects that they simply can't follow the instructions and can't wrap their head around how how it works. And so that's that's always a caveat.
00:17:14
Speaker
um Kind of a counter example is, ah Brain-computer interfaces, the vast majority of them are reliant on the visual system because they're typically a cursor on a screen. But one advantage is if someone has lost their sight, the Encephal phone is fantastic for that because they don't they don't need visual system at all. So visually impaired, it's actually great. So that's kind of a counter example.
Attention Training and ADHD: The Encephalophone's Potential
00:17:41
Speaker
What about um people who are um have no injury, sort of normals of different ages? Let's say someone who's six years old, how would you imagine a kid would take to this? And what would they what would their learning edge be that this would be great for?
00:17:57
Speaker
Well, ah one, it should work for quite young children. um we We all have a inherent music circuitry in there, and I think the concept is is not super hard to get across.
00:18:13
Speaker
First of all, I think you could use them in very young children. um Other fully abled ah people, I think the the amount of...
00:18:26
Speaker
kind of quiet focused attention meditative like state of mind that it requires is very useful therapeutically for people who have say ADHD or other attention issues and this is very common now among not just children but adults but we're all learning to navigate the world through our phones, through a very distractible, quick series of images. And I think it can be really useful to kind of get people back to a a focused attention where they're learning through meditation. So I think it could be helpful for, i have no proof of this yet, but I think it would be very helpful for things like ADHD and other attention issues.
00:19:11
Speaker
So I think that could be very useful for normal, so to speak, people with healthy individuals who don't have any motor disability. is there is What is the time delay between the thought that a person has, like either calming their thought or having a certain thought, and the response of this computer? ah ah what The reason I'm asking is maybe you can delay that time to slow down a person's thinking.
00:19:36
Speaker
right If there's an ADHD problem, you're constantly jumping topic to topic. if you could train a person to slow down their thinking by having a delay in the circuitry so that the tone responds later than you're expecting, you would learn to control your thoughts and slow down your thinking.
00:19:52
Speaker
I hadn't thought of that. That's a great idea. um Fortunately, it's very easy to create a delay. The bigger problem is trying to get it in real time so that as is, it's not really in real time. it's There is no real time. It's it's looking at the last ah roughly one second, some cases 500 milliseconds of time, and it's kind of integrating. And then there's inherent delays in the circuitry and the in the in the code and then electronic delays of milliseconds so as is if if we're doing it in quote unquote real time it's really ah roughly a second ago yeah yeah yeah so there there is time you could lengthen that if you know if you want it but it could be easily lengthened and i think that might be useful for attention um i think probably where it is right now they've got plenty of
00:20:44
Speaker
attention required to get this to work. So we may not need to do that, but I i do like that idea and that might add some some more sort of sort of near future planning that requires a certain amount of working memory and attention.
00:20:58
Speaker
So what would help for you now? You need money, you need backers and money and subjects, yeah increasing the number of cases ah to look at what the limitations are. Like, are there interesting exceptions What's the natural variation among normals? I mean, that's all going to take time to work out.
00:21:17
Speaker
For sure. Funding is always there's always an issue.
Clinical Trials and Future Aspirations for the Encephalophone
00:21:22
Speaker
We
00:21:25
Speaker
need programmers. We need subjects. We need actual you know equipment. um And where we're at right now, we've just published a clinical trial, a limited pilot study in the hospital taking real world individuals with motor disability from different disorders, stroke, tumors, ALS, and just tried to show that one, they could operate it, real world patients in the hospital with motor disability at better than random, but also over a series of sessions that they had a learning effect and they would get better. And we're limited to three sessions with two different tests. So a total of six tests and they all improved. It would be nice to see a longer learning effect if you're able to go out longer.
00:22:22
Speaker
But having done that, we have since made a number of improvements in the algorithm and made it more tunable, so to speak.
00:22:32
Speaker
and a little less of a black box where we're able to see people's sick brain signal in real time while they're calibrating the device. And so now we we're trying to look at um if we're able to, if those improvements translate into a higher percentage of accuracy and also trying to look at that learning effect a little more. So we're actually about to do a study back to normal, quote unquote, healthy individuals, just to see if these algorithmic effects have taken hold and to see if that learning effect carries out. But what we would like to do is another clinical trial with patients with motor disability, focus more on one disorder so we don't have as heterogeneous a group of individuals, but
00:23:20
Speaker
probably will focus on stroke patients and try to look at outcomes. So not just are they getting some accuracy and getting some enjoyment out of this, but are we seeing changes in their brain?
00:23:33
Speaker
So we're going to look with an MRI and see if their new white matter tracks with diffusion tensor imaging We're going to look and see, do they actually improve their motor skills, even though they're not directly practicing motor skills, above and beyond what you would get with regular physical therapy? Do they have cognitive improvements in their attention because of the use of the encephalophone? would be nice to to show. I have no doubt that we're going to be able to show that we're having more effect on these people than just...
00:24:04
Speaker
bringing them music again, which is not small, and the joy and the emotional benefits of that, but are we actually giving them actual motor improvement? Are they are we making changes in their brain?
00:24:17
Speaker
Are they forming new white matter tracks? That's what we'd like to do. We'd also like to have a dry electrode system where this would be portable and we could have people take it home. And if they're in the hospital, then they could now take a device home and keep working on it and keep playing with it and or individuals who are healthy, can they use this as a biofeedback device if they take it home? Can they use it to help with their attention become more focused?
00:24:46
Speaker
So that's that's kind of where we're at. Those are what we're looking to yeah what we're looking to do, and and all this is going to require funding, of course. Yeah. Do you think that the persistence of the learning effect is um you think the persistence of the learning effect, ah there there will be one, right? So like somebody who is trained, a normal person who's trained on the encephalophone will do better the next week, right? When they come back, but you'd expect that. Do you think that the persistence will have a bigger impact on people who actually already have an injury? In other words, they have...
00:25:21
Speaker
their learning is so much, there's so much more to learn and relearn and form new pathways that that will be even quicker in a person who's recovering from something. They're on the steeper part of the learning curve already. yeah Yes, I think so. And um so learning effect is nothing earth shattering, almost any device or new thing you're going to see people improve with practice. That's not shocking. but I have, and we've already shown that there's a learning effect with a limited number of of patients, but um one of the interesting things that we saw was, and this was not statistically significant because we didn't have enough people in these studies, but the people who tended to do better and learn faster tended to be the people who were more disabled.
00:26:10
Speaker
um So those with the worst ah motor disability tended to do the best. Again, not statistically significant, but I think that would end up panning out a bit more. And it may be what you're saying, they have they're in a steeper part of the learning curve, and so they have sort of more to gain. And so they may be more motivated.
00:26:32
Speaker
I think they're also probably not just more motivated, but... If someone is ah a near quadriplegic and has just a little bit of movement in one hand, they are, and it's new, they have a lot of time to think about moving and it must be incredibly frustrating and they they must really be extremely motivated to do better.
00:26:55
Speaker
And so I think that that's part of it is they're they're able to kind of imagine movement better and they're able to be motivated, they're highly motivated to improve. Well, it feels to me like it's a gift to humanity. It's really it's an it's amazing.
00:27:12
Speaker
And i think the possibilities are unlimited at this point. Well, thank you. And i I agree. Again, I want to give credit. I am not by any means near to the only brain-computer interface out there. There's research...
00:27:30
Speaker
going on and all kinds of wonderful devices and wonderful people doing research everywhere. I think what's unique about this and potentially better than these other is really comes down to the motivating power of music. People are able to focus on playing music and the joy that that brings a lot better than they are just kind of move a cursor on a screen.
00:28:00
Speaker
And I think that is going to make this better in terms of that learning effect and people getting more and more accurate. And then you can kind of translate that into other things besides just music, as we were talking about before. And I think that's what's much more unique and potentially the most beneficial about this is music.
00:28:21
Speaker
the power of
Fulfillment Through Passion: Tom's Multidisciplinary Impact
00:28:22
Speaker
music. Well, so that that brings it back to you. Do you think the encephalophone has been therapeutic for you as ah a way of having a musical self in your medical life?
00:28:35
Speaker
Right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So early on, i I kind of made a choice between going into music and going into science and eventually medicine as well. And I chose science medicine mostly as a practical thing um quite honestly is it was kind of easier in a way um the the potential for failure is is high in the creative world um and you have to be really motivated and not many people kind of quote unquote make it and this has kind of been a nice way to bring it back around But I would also say jokingly, part of that choice was probably looking at, I'm not that good of a musician. So I had to invent this device where I was the the best in the world at this particular musical instrument. And the only way that was going to happen was to invent a completely new device that other people hadn't played. So briefly, i was the best encephalopone player in the entire world. this is all purely ego defensive. Oh, yeah. However, i would say that um Jeremy, one of the quadriplegics who played in the in the concert, and he he was he he had a great sense of humor in it and and not a little bit of ego himself, he he joked that he is the best encephalopong player in the world, and he is to this day. Good to know. he He was incredibly good. He was in the...
00:30:00
Speaker
I think 96% accuracy in our test. Yeah. So where- I'm no longer the best. where But you you know you are you're also a sailor. um where Where is your heart now? And when you think about the sort of the passionate engagement with the thing that gives you the greatest reward, is it is it on the ocean? is it playing music? Is it in the clinic? where how do you These are very different selves. They are very different selves.
00:30:28
Speaker
Sailing as much as I love it, that that still kind of fits into the pastime. um Music feels more like a calling. and Quite honestly, that my happiest place was to this day that concert. And not just that concert, but the moments when I saw people, the light bulb go off in their head, and they were realizing that they were playing music.
00:30:55
Speaker
I'm talking about people with motor disability, not the quote-unquote... healthy individuals, normals, that that is where it's at. that's that's yeah That's what I want to bring more to in my life and to other people's lives. that also seems kind of medical too. Like, you know, I've seen videos of an infant who's had ah an ear implant, right? And they've been deaf since birth.
00:31:20
Speaker
And now they're three or four years old. And so at that moment they can hear. yeah And it's a very emotional moment for parent and kid both. Just like, oh my God, I'm hearing. right It's very moving.
00:31:32
Speaker
That's a medical moment. It is. What's great about this is that moment for me is a medical moment, a musical moment, and a scientific moment.
00:31:43
Speaker
And so it brings those three pieces of pie together in one place. And that's probably why that's the most important to me. yes because It's because it's sort of a fulfillment of the parts of me. oh I like that. Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
And the the the thing that motivates me most in medicine are those moments, that that type of moment. And not the not the repetitive, doing the doing the fixing the same thing over and over again.
00:32:09
Speaker
Although, you know when it comes to a human, when you're fixing a thing, it's it can be pretty powerful and and important and satisfying. But that's the human moment that that makes it less...
00:32:21
Speaker
In my experience, less of my scientific experience when it's a pure science is the human moment, the interaction with someone who has nothing to do with science themselves, but you're seeing the result of your yeah of your of your actions on someone's...
00:32:41
Speaker
health and their emotional state. And that's that's the magic right there. And if it's musical, it's even better. Yeah. And so ah just to shift gears a second, what is what what does a creative person do in response to the to our times when science
Art and Science: Responses to Oppression and Tyranny
00:33:00
Speaker
and medicine and even humanism is under attack by a pretty barbaric government where a cruelty is celebrated and it's a race to the bottom for bad behavior. How does a thoughtful creative person such as yourself handle a this pretty dark time without despair?
00:33:23
Speaker
Well, easier said than done, but this is when you double down. This is when... This is when... great art happens is under duress and under even near oppression is when I think some that's a catalyst for for great art um well there's a great tradition of of protest in art uh to oppression and and tyrannical systems and uh
00:33:57
Speaker
if you If you can muster the courage, I think it's not something you want. You don't want this situation to come about, but it can be a catalyst for some of the best art and the most creativity. Because the need is even greater.
00:34:12
Speaker
Because the need is even greater. Now, that can bump into practicality when it comes to freedom of expression. What are you actually able to do without getting shut down or deported or what have you? And then financial, are you able to get funding to do what you want?
00:34:36
Speaker
So I think the brave rise to the occasion use that energy to to create something better. I hope I have the courage to do that. Yeah, well, I mean, part of it too, I think, is um you're compelled.
00:34:55
Speaker
you know to to Inaction is not a choice here for you. I mean, you're being driven by a need, yeah, but also a passion to do this. like Inaction or a pass passivity is not it's not it's not something you would ever do.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, i I don't think so. um I should also say that i'm my particular niche is not one that is particularly controversial for any of the things that are being...
00:35:29
Speaker
I could have it a lot worse. That's what I'm saying. There are there are others who who are doing research that are that is much less fundable in this difficult environment than mine is.
00:35:41
Speaker
But you never know. Overall, there's a lot less funding. There's a sort of anti-intellectualism, which I think is maybe even more dangerous. um And you never know when it's going to come to affect you.
00:35:56
Speaker
So... ah I don't have it so bad, but it is a challenge. yeah There are others who are more challenged than I am. So I should be able to get it done. Well, we live in a time too when art is being repurposed to serve the ruling class.
00:36:14
Speaker
And that's kind of always been true, but very often artists have been left alone to create as they want. But when art comes to serve the state in a fascist environment, artists have to decide.
00:36:28
Speaker
like Well, that's propaganda. yeah Artists have to pay the rent, too. yeah Shostakovich discovered this when he you know needed to perform needed to compose symphonies that pleased Stalin. right He needed to eat. right yeah
00:36:45
Speaker
you know He doesn't have that many apologists now. People are critical of him for that. But you do gotta eat. Yeah, there were some artists who survived in Nazi Germany, but they they were not so...
00:37:02
Speaker
and were that Many of them did not survive at all, quite literally, and others survived only by producing something that they never would have, because they had to eat.
00:37:13
Speaker
But maybe what you're saying also is that both art and science are the strongest, most articulate rebuttal to a barbaric time. Yes.
00:37:24
Speaker
Continuing to produce, right? Yeah, I would agree. I would hope that this kind of work though really should trans It should it should It should rise above this stuff, but it's not always the reality it It shouldn't be controversial ah
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, um thank you. Thanks for your thoughts and for your candor Thank you. Thanks for your interest that Sure. Again All right. all right