Why Do Pacific Rim Jaegers Need Two Brains? | Because Science w/ Kyle Hill 

What I took from this: if our brains were computers, the issue isn't that we're CPU limited, but RAM limited

This isn't a silly franchise. ELBOW ROCKET, TAKE ME TO THE NEXT SCENE!!!

Thank you for mentioning how false those brain myths are.

As a neuroscientist, it's fairly rare that I see a video like this and actually agree with all the science taught. You've done your work well. All the kudos to you and your team.

I always thought about it like, when a single pilot use to drift their body would basically start to shut down because their brain was automating the Jaeger but stopped doing it for the body, so pilots would basically forget to do things like breath or beat their hearts. so when two pilots drift, their brains are each only doing half the work which allows them to continue to keep the pilots alive. kind of like ram. if you have 1 8gb stick of ram and use all 8gbs it would be slower than 2 4gb sticks using the same 8gbs of ram at the same speed. because they are each dealing with less of a load. (or 1 guy carrying 50 lbs vs 2 people carrying 25lb's each in a race, the 2 people have an advantage)

the '10%' thing always bugs me. the brain is a huge, expensive organ. if we didn't need it we wouldn't have it.

He is science thor

Using Godzilla is more effective (FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE)

Pacific rim 3 :kaijus are controlled by caillou

Great episode! I'm a neuropsychology student and I love your show and Pacific rim. I like your theory, but I think there are definitely more reasons why Jaeger's need 2 pilots. We saw in the first movie that solo pilots received seizures and brain hemorrhages. That type of thing could happen for a few reasons, but I think the best explanation comes from computational neuroscience, which I think you'd love. The drift is probably a kind of super electromagnetic brain-stimulation scanner that stimulates the sensory cortices and reads localized neuron firing in certain motor regions, which would cause an intense electromagnetic brain stimulation. If the sensory and motor neurons can't fire fast enough, or slow enough, populations of neurons would not be able to fire in sync or at a normal rate, which could easily cause a seizure. The stimulation itself could also cause neuron death and hemorrhage. But with two brains, the sensory stimulation can be shared, requiring less neuron firing. I think the only reason splitting tasks by hemisphere makes sense is so they only need to use one arm and they can have the other free to interface with the rest of the computer and weapons. What probably happens is that they only receive sensory stimulation from one hemisphere and each control only one of the arms, because the tasks are less automatic and require more attention due to the increased neuron firing, but it looks like they both control the legs together. This also stresses why both pilots need to trust each other and think alike but to also not think hard about their movements.

My son Garrett just turned 8 last week, and he absolutely ADMIRES you. We watch every BS episode together. He says he wants to be an engineer when he grows up, but I know it won't be easy. If you could give him some encouragement and advice, I know it'd really leave its mark. Thank you.

implicit memory? or should we say, Ultra instinct

7:24 I agree I don’t know my locker combination but as soon as I try to do it my fingers move and open it

8:33 The way he said "just do things" reminded me of the TDK's Joker's hospital scene. No rules, no schemes. Like a dog chasing cars. Wouldn't even know what to do if he caught one. He just do things...

Now remember the film that told us "we use only 1% of our brain!" I guess someone was really wrong about that one XD

How to beat Kaiju on a budget: Kinetic missiles launched from space.

There is at least one more reason to use two brains: the error rate when reading thoughts via the brain interface. In order for the Jaeger to move, it has to interpret the pilots' thoughts and discern a command. Connecting brains to computers is difficult. We can assume the Jaegers have better technology than us in this regard, but that doesn't make them perfect. Perfection is unlikely. We might compare their thought-recognition software to our best speech-recognition software. Last year, Google's speech-recognition software reached a 4.9% error rate. That's pretty good, but if Jaegers misinterpreted commands 5% of the time then they likely would not last very long. Assume the Jaeger receives two commands and has additional predictive software to guess which command was correct. The likelihood that it misinterprets two commands consecutively is just 0.25%. By adding one more pilot, the machine has cut its error rate to the old error rate squared, in this case reducing errors by up to 95%. In that case, the main purpose of the brain link software is to ensure pilots are sending the same commands.

"dont think, SHOOT!" -solid snake.

You made more mistakes in your car experiment. You also didn't check the mirrors and turned on your signals. And yes, in this experiment, I also ended up in the ditch.

Kind of reminds me of how we implicitly know how to walk, but as soon as you start thinking about, you question yourself if you're doing it right and stuff up 😂😂

Honestly the part where he starts explain about doing things without thinking about them, makes sense I play the bass and I just play naturally like it's nothing until I start to think about it ,then I start playing the wrong notes

Who needs super strength when you can just tape a rocket to your elbow

8:37, I always question what I'm doing, no wonder I make so many mistakes

I was once practicing a piece of music and dosed off; however, I was still playing it. Hmmmmmmmm

Without watching it yet, my wild guess is that the designers originally thought it would be advantageous, but as time progressed and technology improved, having two pilots became largely unnecessary. The reason it persists is that the cost to completely redesign and retool factories to make just one pilot Jaegers became too entrenched in a "it's how we've always done it" mentality and the steep cost to redo the infrastructure. Much like Daylight Savings. (I'm still salty about losing an hour this week. Every year) Edit: oh. That also makes sense. SURPRISELIGHTSABER!!!

This is probably the best ep ever, 'cause this was essentially a fanboy rationalization, but plausibly science based. Truly well done! 👏👏👏👏👏

Why do jeagers need two brains. Me: because they do

Am i the only one that noticed the lane change problem as he did it? "Lol, he did it wrong" *15 seconds later* "Oh, it was on purpose"

Are "Pacific Rim" sized robots possible? We see in calculations of how Volume and Surface Area don't scale at the same rate as Surface Area increases, so wouldn't they be too heavy to operate properly?

I think this could explain why Raleigh and Stacker could continue to pilot their respective Jaegers after their Co-pilots died. The drift Combines the consciousness of two pilots and also, according to Kyle, their implicit memory. Raleigh's brother was still connected to him when he died, i think that somehow His brother's implicit memory somehow transferred to Raleigh. Therefore Raleigh had two people's Implicit Memory, which was enough for him to continue piloting the Jaeger alone and Kill the Kaiju. This might have been what also happened to Stacker. i think my Theory makes decent sense. what do you guys think. Oh and Kyle I love your content and it has increased my scientific knowledge so much and i listen to it while I Study and do homework.

I wanna know the science behind the leap of faith and how far up you could actually jump from.

As an orquestra musician (violin player) I used to experience a sense of self extraction when playing a very complicated piece in a presentation. I started paying atention to what I was playing first but sometime in the presentation I started thinking in something else, like the grocery list, or a movie, or something abstract, and then I noticed that I was distracted from paying attention to playing BUT I was still playing correctly and with no error. It was as if I was watching my body play and then I attempted to regain control over my body by paying attention again to what I was playing so I wouldn't make a huge and embarrasing mistake and it was hard to not make a mistake, like if thinking that you would do a mistake and then you do it. I was able to switch between that state of mind quickly without error after a while but was very fascinating to me and I haven't experienced that with anything else in my life, with any other activity.

This man can break the 4th wall and still not make it cringy

Still does not explain why they keep yelling out what they are doing!

Why don’t they just slap 10 people in there instead of two, wouldn’t that make the ultimate jaeger like one dies eh 9 more

I think those 10% brain people think that you don't use only 10% but you use only 10% of your brain is capable of what you can do , like you can be a lot smarter & memorize more than you normally do.

6:06 I already am driving a car so I know that I should do a second rotation to put myself into the right lane.

Because they didn't develop an AI good enough to take some of the processing load?

I once knew a story of someone whose brain was damaged when he was an infant. As he grew his brain developed into two separate and completely functional brains. He said they are not completely separated as he can function like a normal person. Be he's able to read and comprehend two pages of different text at the same time, able to think about and answer questions at the same time. He said it can get kinda noisy in his head because of the many conversations that he has with himself.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense! Especially in the case of Crimson Typhoon, which had not just two pilots, but THREE.

Kyle: "we're all whole brained people." Me: "and some are No-Brainers." Badum tsh!!

as a former small race driver its a good analogy, when you learn to handle a race car, the pressure of breaks and trying not to lock them up while breaking, the feel of the grip, the influence of traction control, you dont think about it in races consciously , the more you think the more you will screw up u, you just... flow with it you feel it.

Everybody has Ultra Instinct Omen?

Will you guys ever make a side program of Because Science for older references? I realise you guys tend to do more recent pop culture because it is what people are interested in and so it brings in the views, but, man, the questions I have about some old stuff. You could call it "Because SCIENCE!" but said in a black and white, 50s, mad scientist voice. That's right, the voice is black and white, too.

If you think of it, since our brain is two connected complex organ within a single person, were pretty much an organic jaeger on our own in which our brains we're the pilots

I was watching this and another of your vids and was interested when the issue of multitasking came up. The example given to you involved playing guitar, singing and teaching someone to do this. I think I recall you saying that this could be regarded more as a complex single task. One way to examine that, which one of my schoolmates got me to go years ago, is to choose two ( simple, ideally) really well known tunes (say "Happy Birthday " and "We wish you a Merry Christmas), and start singing one out loud, once started, begin the second in your head, using your internal monologue.

The question you should be asking is why dont they remote control the Jaegers

Marching band proves that multitasking and playing trombone while reading music as well as marching is the hardest things possible

The kaiju start coming and they don't stop coming. Drift to the Rift and they hit the ground running. Didn't make sense not to fight them off. Using more pilots would have been even better then. Though in actuality, how effective is second hand learning? Is it possible to implant the muscle/ implicit memories in an effective way such that training is not a needed factor. Especially when in the movies all the pilots are highly trained already. Additionally, wouldn't it be more effective to drift outside of battle instead of in the mech itself. Learning of your partners damaging past or weird proclivities just as you enter battle for the first time seems a bad idea. (Edit) This is a question that I think of whenever memory manipulation is hinted at. How powerful are implicit or muscle memories when the neutral pathway aren't established. Knowing how to speak Latin doesn't mean you have the muscle movement and pronunciation down.

IMO, the best dual pilot analogy would be attack helicopters. There’s a pilot who focused primarily on flying and one who focused on gunning and other functions. They are both free to organize their tasks as needed and can switch as needed depending on equipment setup.

Soo, you need to master ultra instinct ( dragon ball super) to pilot the robots.....

If an elbow rocket is strong enough to drag you along with it would it not rip off your arm?

There was a study done some years ago where the researchers looked dta people who had their corpus callosum surgically severed. This is used to treat epileptic seizures when medication is ineffective. One of the things they found is that if people say something through they're left eye they couldn't speak the name of what they were seeing. Things seen through the left eye go to the right side of the brain and most people's speech center is on the left side of the brain. Without the corpus callosum to let the hemispheres communication, most people can't talk about what they are seeing through their left eye

4:02 thumbs up if you didn't write shit.

So those three Asian dudes in the first movie were basically OP cause more the brains, more the muscle memory. And still they loose...

At the beginning of Pacific rim 2 they say that a jeager is small enough to be piloted by one driver. This is flawed.

Technically you can multitask but only very small tasks

Why don't they separate the roles of the pilots into weapons systems and motor functions? Seems a lot harder to try and coordinate movement between two pilots.

For the activity of changing lanes, I went through many more steps than just turning the wheel. 1. blinker, 2, automatic want to open my eyes and look over my shoulder and at mirrors. 3, turn once, turn back, straighten out. 4, open eyes.

I just recently started watching your videos and i am really liking the content already ☺

So basically they have to use ULTRA INSTINCT

Another thing to add about the left-brain right brain thing: I read in a nuerology book that if one hemisphere is damaged, the other side can make up for its job despite being a different part of the brain. This led to the idea of nuero plasticity... pretty cool stuff. Edit: I just got to the part of the video where you mention "Incognito." That is what I read. Very solid book and really changed the way I think of the brain.

So, I'm watching this week's episode but I've been working on a correction. I know everyone will hate me but I decided to go back to Vibranium. I wanted to know how big the Wakandan asteroid had to be to have a FINAL mass of 10,000 tons on the ground, since weighing it after and thinking that was the pre-impact mass seems to be counter-productive. I know you guys love when work is shown, so get ready for math. So first I had to figure out the math you referenced about what the size would be with the lower density from MCU: Vibranium has a density of 2.62g/cm3 907185g in (short) ton * 10000tons = 9071850000g 9071850000 / 2.62g = 3462538167.94cm3 3449372623.57cm3 to 3462.53m3 3462.53m3 area = 9.385m sphere (minimum 25m to survive) But the vibranium is mixed 50% with something else. I say we go as light as possible to make it bigger. Let's go with ice. Ice density is 1000kg/m3 9071850000g / 1g/cm3 = 9071850000cm3 9071850000cm3 to 9072m3 9072m3 area = 12.94m (ice) + 9.385m (vibranium) = 22.325m sphere (Getting closer!) Next, we need to find out the effects of atmospheric entry on the vibranium/ice asteroid. I couldn't find easily digestible calculations (swear I'm just a layman) so I played around with the Imperial College of London Earth Impact Effects Program online calculator (link below). I decided to use a projectile density of 1810kg/m3 to best simulate a mix of vibranium/ice, impact speed of 72km/s since this is an extrasolar asteroid, and impact angle of 45deg as that's most likely. I found it difficult to figure out the amount of the asteroid that would reach the ground, but it seems like as low as 3/4 of the impact melt rock would be. So I assumed (this is big and probably horribly incorrect) that the totality of the leftover asteroid would be found in the impact melt rock within the crater since that's what it looks like we see in the movie. I also assume that vibranium vaporizes at the same rate as any other metal upon atmospheric entry. That led me to making this ridiculous equation: t*d=x*.75=y 't' is melt crater thickness 'd' is final crater diameter .75 to approximate the impact melt rock composition Trying to get to 10,000 tons vibranium on the ground in our 50% mix asteroid means y > 12534.53m3, which also means x > 16720m3. Plugging in numbers into the ICL Impact Effects Program calculator seems to show that getting that exact amount on the ground is difficult, but possible. You either airburst at a low amount or have to start with a, frankly, gigantic starting asteroid. Now, understanding that my math is probably off and I've got a few big and likely incorrect assumptions, the closest I could reliably get from playing around with the calculator gets us to: 188m (!!!!) round vibranium/ice asteroid impact 4.5km final crater diameter 3.78m average thickness impact melt rock 17010m3 total impact melt rock at 75% vibranium composition 12757.5m3 vibranium/ice meteoroid buried in Wakanda (Other fun sciencey facts based on being 100km away from impact!) Fireball appears 6.78 times larger than the sun (4.81 radiant flux) 6.7 Richter scale earthquake 81 dB air blast (loud as heavy traffic) So while just an asteroid composed of 50% mix of vibranium and ice at 20,000 total tons wouldn't make it to the surface intact, it looks like a much larger one could and have the same type of effects we see described in the movie. You mustn't be afraid to dream a bit bigger, darling. Sources: Wolfram Alpha, (duh) www.wolframalpha.com ICLIEP impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/ www.psi.edu/epo/explorecraters/impactmeltrocks.htm

Dual processors are not faster than a single processor, they merely increase the load.

So this video explained why I feel so awkward when I actually *try* to walk instead of just doing it.

Piloting anything with as complicated machinery as a jaeger is a difficult task especially when also having to deal with battlefield tactics. Two brains are better than one. a big problem when dealing with a crew (whether it's battleships, tanks, or what-have-you) is communication you cant deal with problems in real time because human language has a speed limit. The drift could be a way of making quick crew communication possible. Love the show! Episode on how superhero comics/shows/movies think dna works? jessica jones and luke cage brought up dna experiments in getting powers, is it even possible to splice new dna into fully formed adults?

You seen have to have forgotten the part where they are deeply linked to one another to the point that they even share and see one anothers memories. If two brains were linked to one another in this form then they soon lose all individuality and become just one big brain and one big brain would most likely not have anymore implicit memory than a normal one I would wager. Also, when Idris Elba pilots a Yaeger he doesn't bring anything into the drift which would mean he wouldn't bring any additional implicit memory to the equation. He simply becomes an additional processor to handle the load put onto the pilots minds. What I believe the purpose of the pilot is just that, to be the most powerful processor and largest storage unit mankind could ever make but since one brain would never be enough to handle that large of a task and handle that much raw info.

I don’t see why you can’t automate much of the Jægers’ functionality. If you automate the function of the nuclear reactor in Gypsy Danger, or automate & link the body movement of the Jæger to the pilot, or the electrical functions, etc. you don’t have to think about operating said Jæger. Similar to the small mech suits on Avatar, the operation of the Jægers can be entirely automated, so the humans can focus on the physical control(s) of moving their arms, legs, etc.

How to kill Kaiju: Ask Chuck Norris

Because Science Wait, if, as you stated two Footnotes ago, because Vibranium absorbs heat because it absorbs KE, how would you melt it in order to forge it into anything???

Keeping the lights on with style and finesse, the opposite of mad, absolutely entertained

What if Sherlock Holmes Pilot a Jaeger!?

Somewhat off-topic but I feel that some of this can also explain Ultra Instinct from Dragon Ball Super. Since the technique (yes it is a technique and not a Super Saiyan form) relies on the person letting their conscious mind go and letting their body function purely on instinct and Implicit Memory.

Seeing as the two people piloting the jaeger have to "get along", it does make a bit of sense (at least with using a bit of what I've learned from this video) that they might potentially end up in a relationship (Such as Raleigh and Mako).

Kyle couldn't theoretically if a jager pilot was trained long enough solo (say from the first movie) they're brains could've developed implicit memory for it and as a signal person have better control of the jager compared to say two people with a 96% comparability

If the 2 pilots are connected directly to the brain of each other, shouldn't they speak, move or act in the same manner? I mean, like they were coping each other as long as they are connected.

"And this isn't a silly franchise." Sure. Using giant robots with swords instead of missiles, chemical weapons and torpedoes against fleshy targets...totally serious.

Gamers know that W-walk forward A-walk left D-walk right and S-walk backwards

If that wasn't enough helicopters for Gipsy Danger's mass (1980 tonnes), what would have been enough helicopters? Also, if the drift is possible, is there anything to two people being more compatible to drift together than others? And would there be any chance of the pilots taking on characteristics/mannerisms of their drift partner after spending time connected? (I don't even know if this is something that could be answered, since it's not like there's been two people connected to observe, but theoretically, I guess?)

This is literally explained in the first Pacific Rim and in Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero. The mental capacity for a single Ranger controlling a Jaeger is too much strain. Caitlin Lightcap, the inventor of the PONS used to control the Jaegers, found this out after the man she loved, Sergio D'onofrio, was undergoing a seizure while trying to pilot the first Jaeger, Brawler Yukon.

So, even more reasons why building a bunch of plasma/gauss/energy/whatever turrets around the rifts would be more practical, than building complicated mechs piloted by two pilots. Won't be as cool though. But on the topic, wouldn't it be more beneficial to place pilots in different parts of the mecha? Jaegers are pretty big, the distance signals must travel from the pilot cabin to every part of the jaeger must be insane. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just spread specialized pilots trained in either handjob or legwork to place them closer to their area of specialty, instead of this Avatar-level brain connection? Faster response time may be a game breaker, especially since kaiju don't have this luxury. Or do they? You should do more videos about gigantic monsters and how they may work, to deal with this issue and other usual ones, like the square-cube law, energy requirments etc.

Man, I'm sooo crashing next time I have to drive.

From this video you'd think the Star Trek Volkins were left brains

Specific rim🤣🤣

Still can't brain the lane change 😂

Aside from splitting the neural load on a single pilot, I always thought they used two pilots to operate jaegers for the same reason we use two pilots when operating commercial airplanes. To split their tasks and duties to most effectively work through the emergency.

6:24 HOLY SH*T MY MIND IS BLOWN!!!!!!!!!!!😲😲😲

Can't unsee it. Kyle's necklace looks like a Y incision. #kyletopsi

Here's another example of being unaware of what your brain is doing. Say you're riding a bicycle. You're going pretty quickly and you need to make a long sweeping left turn to follow the bike path, a turn you need to lean into a little bit. You only think you need to lean to the left and turn the handle bars left to do it but in reality to get the bike leaning left, you first put in a very tiny turn of the bars to the right before "catching" the lean by turning the bars left.

I actually only use 10% of my brain

Pacific rim is my favorite gundam anime

"Thinking Meat"😂😂😂😂😂

WooHoo! I didn't crash in the lane changing test.

Question Kyle if the Jeagers need two brains to operate properly why don't we have one pilot and a mapped brain copy or clone to allow seamless piloting but only one. And if possible please do an episode on the G fighter Gundam mobile trace system please. Love the show.

A lot of people missed the detail that hinted at this. Kaijus ALSO have 2 brains. But they don't put it side by side. They put one where you expect it to be. And one deeper along the spine.

6:25 not nessecarily(sorry for spelling) what if the road went straight on that way

Hey Kyle big fan. QUESTION: Why does ant man gets slower as he gets bigger but yagers don't , arn't yagers just like a giant human

If you’ve seen the new series pacific rim blackout the main character ghost pilots because he used raw neural memory to help him understand how to do it So this theory makes sense however it was very taxing on his body.

You should do an episode on the dominators from the anime psycho pass

I like Pacific Rim but they completely glossed over the potential that linking Consciousness together could bring. because why stop at 2? why not link a few dozen physicists together to solve problems? or a few dozen Engineers to design better Jaegers? the potentials are nearly endless.