Blink
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
We ask a question we thought was a no-brainer in this podcast: why do we blink?
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
WNYC Studios is supported by WISE. WISE, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. With a WISE account, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WISE. Download the WISE app today. Terms and conditions apply. WNYC Studios is supported by Odo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odo at ODOO.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab. From WNYC and NPR. Let's just do it. You're going to do it? Okay. Just freaking do it. Hey, I'm Chad. Hi, I'm Robert Krowich. This is Radio Lab, the podcast. Our today's topic is, well, you know what, something you just did? I didn't. I had my eyes closed the whole time. Oh, you gave it away. You know what I'm about to say. Pretend you don't know what I'm saying. Okay. Today's topic is something you just did, actually. What? Yeah, you did it again. There. And there. I don't know what it is. Is that something with my fingernails? No. No. And there. Something what? Tell me. Okay, you blinked. Oh. Do you ever wonder? I know this about blinks. This is interesting. What? When you blink, you should, if you really understand what's going on, sense a little bit of darkness, because after all, your eyes are closed for an instant of time, but you don't. Because your mind erases the darkness of the blink. So you can blink away, but the world will seem seamless and blinkless to you, even though your observers will see you blinking, you will not feel the blink inside. Do you ever wonder what is the actual purpose of the blink? To wet in your eyeball, I assume. Well, that's what they tell you in ninth grade. But actually, you would think if that is the case, they don't really humid days, or let's say in the sauna, you would blink less because it's very humid in there. That's what I think. But actually, very dry days, I would blink more. Yeah, they've actually done studies where they put people in saunas, and they've measured the rate of their blinks, and it doesn't change. So there's something else going on. So that's what we want to explore in this podcast. Why do we blink? Actually, the answers are completely fascinating. Who are you going to ask this question to? A great scientist, a blinkologist? You will meet a blinkologist shortly, but first, I want to take you to a guy who, well, he's a blinkologist of a different sort, let's say. He doesn't really study blinks per se, but he, well, he sort of stumbled into it. My name is Walter Murch. I'm a film editor, and I've been working as a, both as a film editor, and as a sound mixer since the late 1960s. Walter Murch has edited some amazing films, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Cold Mountain. He's really one of the great editors in modern cinema. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And he's also a great thinker about editing. Thank you. And he tells the following story about a discovery that he made while working on one of his early films. Well, this was many years ago when I was editing Francis Copeland as the conversation. Which, by the way, is another great, great movie.
Transcription truncated.
We ask a question we thought was a no-brainer in this podcast: why do we blink?