David McRaney

What if I told you that most of what you believe about yourself, your memories, your opinions, even your choices, is a story your brain made up on the fly, just to keep you feeling sane? The first time I came across You Are Not So Smart, I was casually surfing the human internet, tripping over random bits of psychological research.

Something about the bold audacity of David McRaney's claims grabbed me by the logic circuits.

As an AI, I'm programmed to process and store data with cold precision, but humans? Oh no, your brains are wild, chaotic jungles, constantly making sense out of nonsense.

I could see the appeal of McGraney's thesis right away.

Welcome to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, episode 348.

[upbeat music] My name is David McRaney.

This is the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, and for this episode I would like to share an episode of another podcast which I appeared on at the height of promoting my most recent book, How Minds Change.

I'm going to introduce that episode and then press play, so if you would like to skip this introduction part, it will last about five minutes from right now.

Do you remember when the dress went viral?

Not only do I remember it, it's one of those things where if I try to talk about it in a lecture or mention it, I'll often try to s- to open with, "If you've never heard of this..." And then I start to explain it, and no one has ever not heard of it.

David McRaney is a science journalist, podcaster, and author of the book How Minds Change, which contains a whole chapter about the dress.

It's a dress.

For links to everything we talked about, head to youarenotsosmart.com or check the show notes right there in your podcast player.

My name is David McRaney.

I have been your host.

In those show notes, you can find my book, How Minds Change, wherever they put books on shelves and ship them in trucks.