Manolis Kellis: Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything | Lex Fridman Podcast #142

The following is a conversation with Manolis Kelis, his fourth time on the podcast. He's a professor at MIT and head of the MIT Computational Biology Group. Since this is episode number 142 and 42, as we all know, is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, we decided to talk about this unanswerable question of the meaning of life and in whatever way we two descendants of apes could muster, from biology to psychology to metaphysics and to music. Quick mention of each sponsor followed by some thoughts related to the episode. Thanks to Grammarly, which is a service for checking spelling, grammar, sentence structure and readability. Athletic Greens the all in one drink that I start every day with to cover all my nutritional bases and cash app. The app I use to send money to friends. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the opening 40 minutes of the conversation are all about the many songs that formed the soundtrack to the journey of Manolis's life. It was a happy accident for me to discover yet another dimension of depth to the fascinating mind of Manolis. I include links to YouTube versions of many of the songs we mention in the description and overlay lyrics on occasion. But if you're just listening to this without listening to the songs or watching the video, I hope you still might enjoy, as I did, the passion that Manolis has for music, his singing of the little excerpts from the songs, and in general, the meaning we discuss that we pull from the different songs. If music is not your thing, I do give timestamps to the less musical and more philosophical parts of the conversation. I hope you enjoy this little experimenting conversation about music and life. If you do, Please subscribe on YouTube, review it with 5 stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support her on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter lexfriedman. And now here here's my conversation with Manolis Kalis. You mentioned Leonard Cohen and the song Hallelujah as a beautiful song. So what are the three songs you draw the most meaning from about life?

Don't get me started. So there's really countless songs that have marked me that have sort of shaped me in periods of joy and in periods of sadness. My son likes to joke that I have a song for every sentence he will say, because very often I will break into a song with a sentence. He'll say, my wife calls me the radio because I can sort of recite hundreds of songs that have really shaped me. So it's very. It's going to be very hard to just pick a few. So I'm just going to tell you a little bit about my song transition as I've grown up in Greece. It was very much about, as I told you before, the misery, the poverty, but also overcoming adversity. So some of the songs that I. That have really shaped me are, for example, is one of my favorite singers in Greece. And then there's also really just old traditional songs that my parents used to listen to. Like, one of them is. Which is basically, oh, if I was Rich. And the song is painting this beautiful picture about all the noises that you hear in the neighborhood in his poor neighborhood, the train going by, the priest walking to the church and the kids crying next door and all of that. And he says with all of that, I'm having trouble falling asleep and dreaming.

If I was rich.

And then he was like, you know, break into that. So it's this juxtaposition between the spirit and the sublime and then the physical and the harsh reality. It's just not having troubles, not being miserable. So basically rich to him just means out of my misery, basically. And then also being able to travel, being able to sort of be the captain of a ship and see the world and stuff like that. So it's just such beautiful imagery.

So many of the Greek songs, just like the poetry we talked about, they acknowledge the cruelty, the difficulty of life, but are longing for a better life.

That's exactly right. And another one is. And this is one of those songs that has like a fast and joyful half and a slow and sad half. And it goes back and forth between them and it's like.

So poor.

You know, basically, it's the state of being poor. I don't. I don't even know if there's a word for that in English. And then fast part is. And then it's like, oh, you know, basically like the state of being poor and misery, you know, for you, I write all my songs, etc. And then the fast part is in your arms, grew up and suffered and, you know, stood up and, you know, rose men with clear vision. This whole concept of taking on the world with nothing to lose because you've seen the worst of it. This imagery of. So it's describing the young men as cypress trees. And that's probably one of my earliest exposure to a metaphor to sort of, you know, this very rich imagery. And I love. About the fact that I was reading a story to My kids the other day, and it was dark. And my daughter, who's 6, is like, oh, can I please see the pictures? And Jonathan, who's 8. So my daughter Cleo is like, oh, let's look at the pictures. And my son Jonathan, he's like, but Cleo, if you look at the pictures, it's just an image. If you just close your eyes and listen, it's a video.

That's brilliant.

It's beautiful. And he's basically showing just how much more the human imagination has besides just a few images that the book will give you. And then another one. Oh, gosh, this one is really, like, miserable. It's called Stopperi Yali Tokri Faux. And it's basically describing how vigorously we took on our life and we pushed hard towards a direction that we then realized was the wrong one. And again, these songs give you so much perspective. There's no songs like that in English that will basically, you know, sort of just smack you in the face about sort of the passion and the force and the drive. And then it turns out we just followed the wrong life. Yeah. And it's like, wow.

Okay, so that was you.

All right, so that. That's like before 12. So. So, you know, growing up in sort of this horrendously miserable, you know, sort of view of romanticism, of, you know, suffering. So then my pre teen years is like, you know, learning English through songs. So basically listening to all the American pop songs and then memorizing them vocally before I even knew what they meant. So Madonna and Michael Jackson and all of these sort of really popular songs and George Michael, just songs that I would just listen to the radio and repeat vocally. And eventually as I started learning English, I was like, oh, wow, this thing I've been repeating, I now understand what it means without re listening it to it. But just with re repeating it, I was like, oh, again. Michael Jackson's man in the Mirror is teaching you that it's your responsibility to just improve yourself. You know, if you want to make the world a better place, they can look at yourself and make the change. This whole concept of again, I mean, all of these songs, you can listen to them shallowly, or you can just listen to them and say, oh, there's deeper meaning here. And I think there's a certain philosophy of song as a way of touching the psyche. So if you look at regions of the brain, people who have lost their language ability because they have an accident in that region of the brain can actually sing because it's Exactly. The symmetric region of the brain. And that again teaches you so much about language evolution and sort of the duality of musicality and rhythmic patterns and eventually language.

Do you have a sense of why songs don't developed? So you're kind of suggesting that it's possible that there is something important about our connection with song and with music. On the level of the importance of language, Is it possible that it's not just possible.

In my view, language comes after music, language comes after song. No, seriously, like, basically my view of human cognitive evolution is rituals. If you look at many early cultures, there's rituals around every stage of life. There's organized dance performances around mating. And if you look at mate selection, I mean, that's an evolutionary drive right there. So basically, if you're not able to string together a complex dance as a bird, you don't get a mate. And that actually forms this development for many song learning birds. Not every bird knows how to sing and not every bird knows how to learn a complicated song. So basically there's birds that simply have the same few tunes that they know how to play. And a lot of that is inherent and genetically encoded. And others are birds that learn how to sing. And if you look at a lot of these exotic birds of paradise and stuff like that, the mating rituals that they have are enormously amazing. And I think human mating rituals of know ancient tribes are not very far off from that. And in my view, the sequential formation of these movements is a prelude to the cognitive capabilities that ultimately enable language.

It is fascinating to think that that's not just an accidental precursor to intelligence. Yeah, it's sexually selected. It's, well, sexually selected. And it's a prerequisite. Yeah, it's like it's required for intelligence.

And even as language has now developed, I think the artistic expression is needed, like badly needed by our brain. So it's not just that, oh, our brain can kind of, you know, take a break and go do that stuff. No, I mean, you know, I don't know if you remember that scene from. Oh, gosh, was that Jack Nicholson movie in New Hampshire. All work and no play make Jackal dull boy.

The Shining.

The Shining. So there's this amazing scene where he's constantly trying to concentrate and what's coming out of the typewriter is just gibberish. And I have that image as well when I'm working and I'm like, no, basically all of these crazy huge number of hobbies that I have, they're not just tolerated by my work. They're required by my work. This ability of sort of stretching your brain in all these different directions is connecting your emotional self and your cognitive self. And that's a prerequisite to being able to be cognitively capable, at least in my view.

Yeah. I wonder if the world without art and music, you're just making me realize that perhaps that world would be not just devoid of fun things to look at or listen to, but devoid of all the other stuff. All the bridges and rockets and science.

Exactly, exactly. Creativity is not disconnected from art. And you know, my kids, I mean, you know, I could be doing the full math treatment to them. No, they play the piano and they play the violin and they play sports. I mean, this whole, you know, sort of movement and going through mazes and playing tennis and, you know, playing soccer and avoiding obstacles and all of that, that forms your three dimensional view of the world. Being able to actually move and run and play in three dimensions is extremely important for math, for stringing together complicated concepts. It's the same underlying cognitive machinery that is used for navigating mazes and for navigating theorems and sort of solving equations. So I can't have a conversation with my students without, you know, sort of either using my hands or opening the whiteboard in zoom and just constantly drawing or, you know, back when we had in person meetings, just the whiteboard in my office. Yeah, that.

That's fascinating to think about. So that's Michael Jackson, man in the Mirror, Careless Whisper with George Michael, which is a song I like. I mean, you didn't say that I like that one. That's.

I had. I had recorded.

No, no, no.

It's an amazing song for me. I had recorded a small part of it as it played at the tail end of the radio. And I had a tape where I only had part of that song, part of that song. And I just played it over and over and over again. Just so beautiful.

It's so heartbreaking. There's. That song is almost Greek. It's so heartbreaking.

I know. George Michael is Greek.

Is he Greek?

He's Greek. George Michelides. I mean, he's Greek. Yeah. Now you know.

So sorry to offend you so deeply not knowing this. So, okay, so.

So we're moving to France when I'm 12 years old and now I'm getting into the songs of Gainsbourg. So Gainsbourg is this incredible French composer. He is always seen on stage, like, not even pretending to try to please, just like with his cigarette, just like mumbling his songs. But the lyrics are unbelievable. Like, basically, entire sentences will rhyme. He will say the same thing twice, and you're like, whoa. And in fact, another speaking of Greek, a French Greek, Georges Mustaqui. This song is just magnificent.

Avec mage le de metec de juif.

Herons de patre grec so with my phase of. Metec is actually a Greek word. It's, you know, it's a French word for a Greek word. But met comes from meta, and then ek from Ikea, from ecology, which means home. So Metek is someone who has changed homes to a migrant. So with my face of a migrant. And you'll love this one. The Juifairon, the patre grec of meandering Jew of Greek pastor. So again, you know, the Russian, Greek, you know, Jew, Orthodox connection. So with my hair in the four wings avec mesieurs with my eyes that are all washed out who gives me the pretense of dreaming but who don't dream that much anymore with my hands of thief of musician and who have stolen so many gardens with my mouth that has drunk, that has kissed and that has bitten without ever pleasing its hunger with my skin that has been rubbed in the sun of all the summers and anything that was wearing a skirt with my heart. And then you have to listen to this verse. It's so beautiful. Avec mon coeur qu' il faire sous frire Auton qu' ila souffaire with my heart that knew how to make Suffer as much as it suffered but was able to. That knew how to make in French is actually su fair. That knew how to make verses that span the whole thing. It's just beautiful. Do you know?

Yeah, On a small tangent, do you know Jacques Braille?

Of course. Of course.

Those songs, those. That song gets me every time.

So there's a cover of that song by one of my favorite female artists.

Not Nina Simone.

No, no, no, no, no.

Carol Emerald. She's from Amsterdam, and she has a version of Nimikita Pa where she's actually added some English lyrics, and it's really beautiful. But again, Nemekita Pai is just so. I mean, it's, you know, the promises, the volcanoes that will restart. It's just so beautiful.

And I love. So there's not many songs that so show such depth of desperation for another human being. That's so powerful.

And then high school now I'm starting to learn English, so I moved to New York, so. Sting's Englishman in New York. Magnificent song. And again, there's if Manners Mageth man.

As someone said then, he's the hero of the day. It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile. Be yourself, no matter what they say.

And then.

Takes more than combat gear to make a man. Takes more than a license for a gun. Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can. A gentleman will walk but never run again.

You're talking about songs that teach you how to live. I mean, this is one of them. Basically says it's not the combat gear that makes a man. Where's the part where he says, there you go.

Gentleness, sobriety are rare in this society. At night a candle's brighter than the sun so beautiful.

He basically says, well, you just might be the only one.

Modesty, propriety can lead to notoriety.

You could end up as the only one. It basically tells you, you don't have to be like the others. Be yourself. Show kindness, show generosity. Don't you know, don't let that anger get to you. You know the song Fragile?

How Fragile we are. How fragile we are.

So again, as in Greece, I didn't even know what that meant, how fragile we are. But the song was so beautiful. And then eventually I learned English and I actually understand the lyrics. And the song is actually written after the Contras murdered Ben Linder in 1987, and the US eventually turned against supporting these guerrillas. And it was just a political song, but such a realization that you can't win with violence, basically. And that song starts with the most beautiful poetry.

So if blood will flow when flesh and steel are one Drying in the color of the evening sun Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away but something in our minds will always stay. Perhaps this final act was meant to clinch a lifetime's argument that nothing comes through violence and nothing ever could. For all those born beneath an angry star. Lest we forget how fragile we are.

Damn.

Damn right. I mean, that's poetry. It was beautiful. And he's using the English language in just such a refined way, with deep meanings, but also words that rhyme just so beautifully. And evocations of when flesh and steel Are one. I mean, it's just mind boggling. And then, of course, the refrain that everybody remembers is on and on, the.

Rain will fall, etc.

But like this beginning.

Yeah.

And again. Tears from a star.

How fragile we are.

I mean, just these rhymes are just flowing so naturally.

Something. It seems that more meaning comes when there's a rhythm that. I don't know what that is. That probably connects to exactly what you were saying.

If you pay close attention, you will notice that the more Obvious words sometimes are the second verse, and the less obvious are often the first verse because it makes the second verse flow much more naturally because otherwise it feels contrived. Oh, you went and found this, like, unusual word. Yes, in dark moments. The whole album of Pink Floyd and the movie just marked me enormously as a. As a teenager. Just the wall. And there's one song that never actually made it into the album that's only there in the movie about when the tigers broke free. And the tigers are the tanks of the Germans. And it just describes, again, this vivid imagery.

It was just before dawn one miserable morning in black 44, when the forward commander was told to sit tight when he asked that his men be withdrawn. And the generals gave thanks as the other ranks held back the enemy tanks for a while. And the Anzio bridgehead was held for the price of a few hundred ordinary lives.

So that's a theme that keeps coming back in Pink Floyd with us versus.

Them, us and them. God only knows that's not what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear and.

The front rows died from another song.

Like this whole concept of auspicious them. And there's that theme of us versus them again where the child is discovering how his father died when he finds.

An old and found it one day in a draw the old photographs hidden away and my eyes still grow damp to remember His Majesty signed with his own rubber stamp.

So it's so ironic because it seems, the way that he's writing it, that he's not crying because his father was lost. He's crying because kind old King George took the time to actually write Mother a note about the fact that his father died. It's so ironic because he basically says, we are just ordinary men and of course we're disposable. So I don't know if you know the root of the word pioneers, but you had a chessboard here earlier, a pawn in France. It's a pion. They are the ones that you send to the front to get murdered, slaughtered. This whole concept of pioneers having taken this whole disposable, ordinary men to actually be the ones that, you know, we're now treating as heroes. So anyway, there's this juxtaposition of that. And then the part that always just strikes me is the music and the tonality totally changes. And now he describes the attack.

It was dark all around There was frost in the ground when the tigers broke free and no one survived from the Royal Fusiliers Company Z they were all left behind most of them Dead. The rest of them dying. And that's how the high command took my daddy from me.

And that song, even though it's not in the album, explains the whole movie.

Feel. Cold as a tourniquet, right as a dry as a funeral drum.

And then the music builds up, like.

Run to the bedroom. There's a suitcase on the left. I find my favorite axe. Don't look so frightened. This is just a passing phase. One of my bad days.

It's just so beautiful.

I need to rewatch it. That's so.

But imagine watching this as a teenager. It, like, ruins your mind. Like, so many such harsh imagery. And then, you know. Anyway, so there's the dark moment, and then again going back to Sting. Now it's the political songs. Russians. And I think that song should be a new national anthem for the US. Not for Russians, but for red versus blue.

Mr. Khrushchev says, we will bury you. I don't subscribe to this point of view. It'd be such an ignorant thing to do. If the Russians love their children, too.

What is it doing? It's basically saying, the Russians are just as humans as we are. There's no way that they're gonna let their children die. And then it's just so beautiful.

How can I save my innocent boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?

And now that's the new national anthem. Are you reading?

There isn't no monopoly of common sense on either side of the political fence. We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children, too. There's no such thing as a winnable war. It's a lie we don't believe anymore.

I mean, it's beautiful, right? And for God's sake, America, wake up. These are your fellow Americans. They're your fellow biology.

You know, There is no monopoly of.

Common sense on either side of the political fence. It's just so beautiful.

There's no crisper, simpler way to say, russians love their children, too. The common humanity.

Yeah. And remember what I was telling you. I think in one of our first podcasts about the daughter who's crying for her brother to come back for more. And then the Virgin Mary appears and says, who should I take instead? This Turk. Here's his family, here's his children. This other one, he just got married, etc. And that basically says, no. I mean, if you look at the Lord of the Rings, the enemies are these monsters. They're not human. And that's what we always do. We always Say they, you know, they're not like us, they're different, they're not humans, etc. So there's this dehumanization that has to happen for people to go to war. You know, if you realize just how close we are genetically, one with the other. This whole 99.9% identical. You can't bear weapons against someone who's like that.

And the things that are the most meaningful to us in our life, lives at every level is the same on all sides. On both sides, exactly. So not just that we're genetically the same.

Yeah. We're ideologically the same. We love our children, we love our country. We will, you know, we will fight for our family.

Yeah.

So. And the last one I mentioned last time we spoke, which is Johnny Mitchell's Both Sides Now. So she has three rounds.

One on clouds, one on love, and one on life.

And on clouds, she says.

Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way but now they only block the sun they rain and snow on everyone so many things I would have done but clouds got in my way and then I've looked at clouds from both sides now from up and down and still somehow it's clouds, illusions I recall. I really don't know clouds at all.

And then she goes on about love, how it's super, super happy or it's about misery and loss and about life.

How it's about winning and losing and.

So on, so forth.

But now old friends are acting strange. They shake their heads. They say, I've changed. Well, something's lost and something's gained in living every day.

So again, that's growing up and realizing that, well, the view that you had as a kid is not necessarily the view that you have as an adult. Remember my poem from when I was 16 years old of this whole, you.

Know, children dance now, all in row.

And then in the end, even though the snow seems bright without you have lost their light. Sun that sang and moon that smiled. So this whole concept of if you have love and if you have passion, you see the exact same thing from a different way. You can go out running in the rain, or you could just stay in and say, ah, sucks. I won't be able to go outside now.

Both sides anyway.

And the last one is last, last one, I promise.

Leonard Cohen this is amazing, by the way. I'm so glad we stumbled on how much. How much joy you have in so many avenues of life. And music is just One of them. That's amazing. But, yes, Leonard Cohen.

Going back to Leonard Cohen, since that's where you started. So Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love. That's what. That was our opening song in our wedding with my wife.

Oh, no, that's.

As we came out to greet the guest. It was Dancing to the end of love. And then another one, which is just so passionate always. And we always keep referring back to it, is I'm your man. And it goes on and on about sort of, I can be every type of lover for you. And what's really beautiful in marriage is that we live that with my. With my wife every day. You can have the passion, you can have the anger. You can have the love, you can have the tenderness. There's just so many jams in that song.

If you want a partner, take my hand. Or if you want to strike me down in anger, Here I stand, I'm your man.

Then if you want a boxer, I.

Will step into the ring for you. If you want a driver, climb inside. Or if you want to take me for a ride, you know you can.

So this whole concept of you want to drive, I'll follow. You want me to drive, I'll drive.

And the difference, I would say between like that and Neme Kitapa is this song. He's got an attitude. He's like. He's proud of this. His ability to basically be any kind of man for the money long. As opposed to the Jacques Braille, like, desperation of what do I have to be for you to love me? That kind of desperation.

But notice there's a parallel here. There's a verse that is perhaps not paid attention to as much, which says.

Ah, but a man never got a woman back, not by begging on his knees.

So it seems that the I'm youm.

Man is actually an apology song. In the same way that is an apology song.

Basically says, I've screwed up. I've screwed up.

I'm sorry, baby.

And in the same way that the careless whisper is now screwed up.

Yes, that's right.

I'm never gonna dance again. Guilty feet have got no rhythm.

So this is an apology song. Not by begging on his knees Or.

I'd crawl to you, baby and I'd fall at your feet and I'd howl at your beauty like a dog in heat. And I'd claw at your heart and I'd tear at your sheet, I'd say please.

And then the last one is so beautiful.

If you want a father for your child or only Want to walk with me a while across the sand? I'm your man.

That's the last verses, which basically says.

You want me for a day?

I'll be there. Do you want me just for a walk? I'll be there. You want me for life? Do you want a father for your child? I'll be there too. It's just so beautiful. Oh, sorry. Remember how I told you I was going to finish with a light hearted song?

Yes.

Ah, last one. You ready? So, Alison Krause and Union Station country song, believe it or not, the lucky one. So I've never identified as much with the lyrics of a song as this one, and it's hilarious. My friends are. Finpatoglu is the guy who got me into genomics in the first place. I owe enormously to him. And he's another Greek. We actually met dancing, believe it or not. So we used to perform Greek dances. I was the president of the International Students Association. So we put on these big performances for 500 people at MIT. And there's a picture on the MIT tech where Seraphim, who's like, you know, bodybuilder, was holding me on his shoulder and I was like doing maneuvers in the air, basically. So anyway, this guy, Seraphim, we were driving back from a conference and there's this Russian girl who was describing how every member of her family had been either killed by the communists or killed by the Germans or killed by the like. She had just like, you know, misery, like death and, you know, sickness and everything. Everyone was decimated in her family. She was the last standing member. And we stop at a. Seraphim was driving and we stop at a. At a rest area and he takes me aside and he's like, manolis, we're gonna crash. Get her out of my car. And then he basically says, but I'm only reassured because you're here with me. And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, he's like, from your smile, I know you're the luckiest man on the planet. So there's this really funny thing where I just feel freaking lucky all the time. And it's a question of attitude. Of course, I'm not any luckier than any other person. But every time something horrible happens to me, I'm like. And in fact, even in that song, the song about sort of, you know, walking on the beach and this, you know, sort of taking our life the wrong way and then, you know, having to turn around at some point, he's like, you know, in the fresh sand we wrote her name. Orea Pufisic, SEO Bat. So how nicely that the wind blew and the writing was erased. So again, it's this whole sort of not just saying bummer, but, oh, great, I just lost this. This must mean something, right?

This horrible thing happened. It must open the door to a beautiful chapter.

So Alison Kraus is talking about the Lucky One. So he's like, oh, my God, she wrote a song for me.

And she goes, you're the lucky one. I know that now. As free as the wind blowing down the road. Loved by many, hated by none. I'd say you were lucky because you know what you've done. Not the care in the world. Not the worry inside. Everything's gonna be all right. Cause you're the lucky one.

And then she goes, you're the lucky one.

Always having fun. A jack of all trades, a master of none. You look at the world with the smiling eyes. And laugh at the devil as his train rolls by. I'll give you a song and a one night stand. You'll be looking at a happy man. Because you're the lucky one.

It basically says if you just don't worry too much. If you don't.