so these creatures engage in in
dominance disputes and and I think
dominance is the right way to think
about it because lobsters aren't very
empathic and they're not very social and
so it really is the toughest lobster
that wins you know and what's so cool
about the lobster is that when a lobster
wins he flexes and gets bigger so he
looks bigger because he's a winner
it's like he's advertising that and the
biological the neural chemical system
that makes him flex is serotonergic and
you think well who cares what the hell
does that mean well tell you what it
means it's the same chemical that's
affected by antidepressants in human
beings and so like if you're depressed
you're a defeated lobster like you're
there like this I'm small I'm not you
know things are dangerous I don't want
to fight you give someone an
antidepressant it's like up they stretch
and then they're ready to like take on
the world again well if you give
lobsters who just got defeated in a
fight serotonin then they stretch out
and they'll fight again and that's like
we separated from those creatures on the
evolutionary timescale somewhere between
350 and 600 million years ago and the
damn neuro chemistry is the same and so
that's another indication of just how
important hierarchies of authority are I
mean they've been conserved since the
time of lobsters right there weren't
trees around with lobsters first first
manifested themselves on the planet and
so what that means is these hierarchies
that I've been talking about those
things are older than trees and so one
of the truisms for what constitutes real
from a Darwinian perspective is that
which has been around the longest period
of time right because it's had the
longest period of time to exert
selection pressure well we know we
evolved and lived in trees something on
the order of 60 million years ago we're
talking ten times as far back as that
for the hierarchy and so the idea that
human beings that the hierarchy is
something that has exerted selection
pressure on human beings is I don't
think that's a disputable that's not a
disputable issue how it's done it and
exactly what that means we can argue
about but like that sort of biological
continuity is just absolutely
unbelievable
I it was funny because I revealed this
finding you know I didn't discover this
I read about it but
I talked to my graduate students about I
used to take them out for breakfast you
know and they were a very contentious
snappy Bunch
and and they're always trying to one-up
each other and they were quite witty and
for like six months until it got very
annoying every time one of them went up
the other they'd stretch themselves out
like snap their hands like so that was
that was very funny it was it was really
very funny so you see this in lobsters
and so that's pretty amazing so yeah and
one of the other thing that's really
cool about lobsters is that let's say
you've been like top lobster for a long
time but you're getting kind of old and
some young lobster just you know wails
the hell out of you and and so you're
all depressed but thing is your brain is
dominant but you don't have much of a
brain because you're a lobster and so
now what are you gonna do cuz you just
lost and the answer is while your brain
will dissolve and then you'll grow a
subordinate brain yeah and so that's
we're thinking about two right here for
a couple of reasons first of all if any
of you have ever been seriously defeated
in life you know what that's like it's
like it's a death a descent a
dissolution and if you're lucky a
regrowth and and maybe not as the same
person that's what happens to people
with post-traumatic stress disorder
right their brains undergo permanent
neurological transformation and they
then inhabit a world it's much more
dangerous than the world that they
inhabited to begin with but we also know
- if you have post-traumatic stress
disorder or depression that your
hippocampus shrinks right it dies and
shrinks and you can sometimes get it to
grow back your hippocampus shrinks and
your amygdala grows and the amygdala
increases emotional sensitivity and the
hippocampus inhibits emotional
sensitivity and so if you've been badly
defeated the hippocampus shrinks and the
amygdala grows now if you recover the
hippocampus will regrow and the
antidepressants actually seem to help
that but the damn amygdala never shrinks
again and so well so that's another
lesson from the lobster it's quite a
terrifying one but but it's one like
it's so interesting that you can relate
to that right oh it's like I get what
that poor crustacean is going through
you know