We are the Web
Ask culture and Guess culture
This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.
In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.
In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.
All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.
If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.
Obviously she’s an Ask and you’re a Guess. (I’m a Guess too. Let me tell you, it’s great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)
Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you’ll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you’ll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.
It explains so much!
So which one are you? Are you from Ask Culture or Guess Culture? Or does it depend on who you’re with?
Theory of mind
Theory of mind is a theory insofar as the mind is not directly observable.[2] The presumption that others have a mind is termed a theory of mind because each human can only prove the existence of his or her own mind through introspection, and no one has direct access to the mind of another. It is typically assumed that others have minds by analogy with one’s own, and based on the reciprocal nature of social interaction, as observed in joint attention, [3] the functional use of language,[4] and understanding of others’ emotions and actions.[5] Having a theory of mind allows one to attribute thoughts, desires, and intentions to others, to predict or explain their actions, and to posit their intentions. As originally defined, it enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of—and thus be used to explain and predict—others’ behavior.[6] Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior implies, in part, that one must be able to conceive of the mind as a “generator of representations”.[7][8] If a person does not have a complete theory of mind it may be a sign of cognitive or developmental impairment.
Theory of mind appears to be an innate potential ability in humans, but one requiring social and other experience over many years to bring to fruition. Different people may develop more, or less, effective theories of mind. Empathy is a related concept, meaning experientially recognizing and understanding the states of mind, including beliefs, desires and particularly emotions of others, often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes.” Theorizing in the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development maintains that theory of mind is a byproduct of a broader hypercognitive ability of the human mind to register, monitor, and represent its own functioning.
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of modern analytic philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body.[2]
Dualism and monism are the two major schools of thought that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism can be traced back to Plato,[3] Aristotle[4][5][6] and the Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy,[7] but it was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century.[8] Substance Dualists argue that the mind is an independently existing substance, whereas Property Dualists maintain that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from and cannot be reduced to the brain, but that it is not a distinct substance.[9]
Monism is the position that mind and body are not ontologically distinct kinds of entities. This view was first advocated in Western philosophy by Parmenides in the 5th century BC and was later espoused by the 17th century rationalist Baruch Spinoza.[10] Physicalists argue that only the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind will eventually be explained in terms of these entities as physical theory continues to evolve. Idealists maintain that the mind is all that exists and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Neutral monists adhere to the position that there is some other, neutral substance, and that both matter and mind are properties of this unknown substance. The most common monisms in the 20th and 21st centuries have all been variations of physicalism; these positions include behaviorism, the type identity theory, anomalous monism and functionalism
HOR and FOR theories
Higher-order and first-order representationalism
Since the theory of consciousness aims to answer both questions (a) and (b), representation may play a role in answering either question. Indeed, philosophers have appealed to representation in answering both questions.
A theory which appeals to representation in answering question (a) (Rosenthal 2002; Kriegel and Williford 2006; Lycan 1996) would take the following general form: for a mental episode to be a certain way for its subject is just for the episode to be represented to the subject as being that way: for the subject to undergo some mental episode which is correct as a representation if, and only if, the episode is that way. Such an answer is sometimes referred to as higher-order representationalism.
Alternatives to higher-order representationalism are legion. For instance, there is the view that for a mental episode to be a certain way for its subject is: for it just to be that way (assuming, of course, that the feature is a possible phenomenal character in accord with the answer to (b)); or for the episode’s being that way to be in a position to play a central role in its subject’s cognition (for it to be “poised”: Tye 2000); or for the episode’s particular instance of being that way to have a special conscious “glow” which cannot be understood in more basic terms; or for its being that way to be within the subject’s perspective in some way not compatible with the representational theory of perspective.
A theory which appeals to representation in answering question (b) (Siewert 1998; Tye 2000; Byrne 2001; Chalmers 2005), would take something like the following form: a feature may be a phenomenal character only if it is a representational property. Such an answer is sometimes referred to as first-order representationalism.
Alternatives to first-order representationalism are also legion. For instance, there is the view that any feature which a mental episode can have can be a phenomenal character, assuming it and the episode together meet the condition mandated in the answer to (a); various familiar physicalist and functionalist answers—e.g., that the phenomenal characters are certain special brain features [functionalist accounts of consciousness]; the view that a property is a possible phenomenal character only if that property is of the special conscious type, a type which cannot be understood in more basic terms; and the view, once again, that some nonrepresentational properties characterizing a subject’s perspective are phenomenal characters.
HOP Theory
Like higher-order thought theory, state consciousness is explained in terms of higher-order representations of mental states. On both forms of theory my knee pain is conscious when I acquire a higher-order representation about the pain. Unlike higher-order thought theory, the higher-order representation is similar to perceptual representation on the inner sense account. Conceptual discrimination is more limited than perceptual discrimination, so one point in favor of the higher-order perception account is its ability to accommodate the rich detail of conscious states. (Lycan 2004) Moreover, no special conceptual powers are required to produce higher-order perceptions, so there is no reason animals could not be conscious on this view.
One concern about the higher-order perception theory involves the nature of the ‘inner sense.’ Although an ‘inner sense’ or ‘internal scanners’ are central to the higher-order perception theory, the theory does not depend on the existence of a dedicated organ. Armstrong (1968) has compared inner sensing to proprioception in its wide distribution and function. Lycan (1996, 2004) has suggested that inner sensing is accomplished by means of attention mechanisms.
A more persistent problem with the higher-order perception theory is the claim that it is impossible to attend to one’s mental states. Most famously argued by G.E. Moore (1903), the transparency claim is that any attempt to attend to a sensation immediately results in attention to the object that the sensation represents. A related objection notes that unlike perceptual states, no special qualities are associated with conscious states. If there was an inner sense, we would expect inner sensory qualities on a par with visual, auditory and tactile qualities. (Rosenthal 1997) Finally, it is worth noting that, like higher-order thoughts, higher-order perceptions might be empty or misrepresent the states they are about. In such a case, you might feel a sensation of pain that in fact was a sensation of cold, or you might feel a pain in the absence of any sensation at all. (Neander 1998) As with Rosenthal, Lycan (1998) takes this to be a case of a higher-order representation as of pain in the absence of a pain sensation, and argues that the result would be a strange, pain-like feeling in the absence of the behavioral effects of pain.
via Consciousness, Higher-Order Theories of [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy].
HOT Theory
Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness
Higher-order theories of consciousness try to explain the distinctive properties of consciousness in terms of some relation obtaining between the conscious state in question and a higher-order representation of some sort (either a higher-order perception of that state, or a higher-order thought or belief about it). The most challenging properties to explain are those involved in phenomenal consciousness—the sort of state that has a subjective dimension, that has ‘feel’, or that it is like something to undergo. These properties will form the focus of this article.
Much more at: Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Green Eyed …
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!”
– Othello
Quote of the day…
“For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.”
– Marc Maron
Sound Familiar?
To be filed under the “thanks for telling us what we’ve always known” section:
People sometimes seek the truth, but most prefer like-minded views.
The analysis, reported this month in Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association, was led by researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Florida, and included data from 91 studies involving nearly 8,000 participants. It puts to rest a longstanding debate over whether people actively avoid information that contradicts what they believe, or whether they are simply exposed more often to ideas that conform to their own because they tend to be surrounded by like-minded people.
“We wanted to see exactly across the board to what extent people are willing to seek out the truth versus just stay comfortable with what they know,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Dolores Albarracín, who led the study with University of Florida researcher William Hart. The team also included researchers from Northwestern University and Ohio University.
The studies they reviewed generally asked participants about their views on a given topic and then allowed them to choose whether they wanted to view or read information supporting their own or an opposing point of view.
The researchers found that people are about twice as likely to select information that supports their own point of view (67 percent) as to consider an opposing idea (33 percent).
Certain individuals, those with close-minded personalities, are even more reluctant to expose themselves to differing perspectives, Albarracín said. They will opt for the information that corresponds to their views nearly 75 percent of the time.
The researchers also found, not surprisingly, that people are more resistant to new points of view when their own ideas are associated with political, religious or ethical values.
“If you are really committed to your own attitude – for example, if you are a very committed Democrat – you are more likely to seek congenial information, that is, information that corresponds with your views,” Albarracín said. “If the issues concern moral values or politics, about 70 percent of the time you will choose congenial information, versus about 60 percent of the time if the issues are not related to values.”
cont…
“For the most part it seems that people tend to stay with their own beliefs and attitudes because changing those might prevent them from living the lives they’re living,” Albarracín said. “But it’s good news that one out of three times, or close to that, they are willing to seek out the other side.
Full paper: Feeling Validated Versus Being Correct: A Meta-Analysis of Selective Exposure to Information
If I may take a moment …
… to earnestly thank everyone who has taken a little time from their days to come by and visit this silly place.
I was just looking at the blog stats and we just got our 1000th visitor (about 500 visitors each month for the first two months).
I can’t tell you how surprised, humbled, and appreciative I am for this … whereas these are tiny numbers in the context of a big internet, each and every visit means a great deal to me and I truly cherish it as if someone had taken the time and effort to visit me in person.
So thank you so so much, both for your visits and your comments … thank you.
Never!
Time Travel Sorted!
Novelists and screenwriters know that time travel can be accomplished in all sorts of ways: A supercharged DeLorean, Hermione’s small watch and, most recently, a spacetime-bending hot tub have allowed fictional heroes to jump between past and future.
But physicists know that time travel is more than just a compelling plot device — it’s a serious prediction of Einstein’s general relativity equations. In a new study posted online July 15, researchers led by Seth Lloyd at MIT analyze how some of the quirks and peculiarities of real-life time travel might play out. This particular kind of time travel evades some of its most paradoxical predictions, Lloyd says.
Any theory of time travel has to confront the devastating “grandfather paradox,” in which a traveler jumps back in time and kills his grandfather, which prevents his own existence, which then prevents the murder in the first place, and so on.
One model, put forth in the early 1990s by Oxford physicist David Deutsch, can allow inconsistencies between the past a traveler remembers and the past he experiences. So a person could remember killing his grandfather without ever having done it. “It has some weird features that don’t square with what we thought time travel might work out as,” Lloyd says.
In contrast, Lloyd prefers a model of time travel that explicitly forbids these inconsistencies. This version, posted at arXiv.org, is called a post-selected model. By going back and outlawing any events that would later prove paradoxical in the future, this theory gets rid of the uncomfortable idea that a time traveler could prevent his own existence. “In our version of time travel, paradoxical situations are censored,” Lloyd says.
But this dictum against paradoxical events causes possible but unlikely events to happen more frequently. “If you make a slight change in the initial conditions, the paradoxical situation won’t happen. That looks like a good thing, but what it means is that if you’re very near the paradoxical condition, then slight differences will be extremely amplified,” says Charles Bennett of IBM’s Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.
For instance, a bullet-maker would be inordinately more likely to produce a defective bullet if that very bullet was going to be used later to kill a time traveler’s grandfather, or the gun would misfire, or “some little quantum fluctuation has to whisk the bullet away at the last moment,” Lloyd says. In this version of time travel, the grandfather, he says, is “a tough guy to kill.”
This distorted probability close to the paradoxical situation is still strange, says physicist Daniel Gottesman of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. “The thing is, that when we modify physics in this way, weird things end up happening. And that’s kind of unavoidable,” he says. “You’re dealing with time travel. Maybe you should expect it to be weird.”
In an earlier paper posted in May at arXiv.org, Lloyd and his team present an experiment designed to simulate this post-selection model using photons. Though the team couldn’t send the photons into the past, they could put them in quantum situations similar to those that might be encountered by a time traveler. As the photons got closer and closer to being in self-inconsistent, paradoxical situations, the experiment succeeded with less and less frequency, the team found, hinting that true time travel might work the same way.
The experiments were meant to simulate freaky paths through spacetime called closed timelike curves, which carry anything traveling along them into the past and then back to the future. Einstein’s equations predicted that travelers on a closed timelike curve would eventually end up back where they started. Although predicted to exist on paper, no such paths have been observed in the wild. Some physicists predict that these loops might exist in exotic regions where spacetime is drastically different, such as in the depths of black holes.
Despite its strange predictions, the new model forms “a nice, consistent loop,” says theoretical physicist Todd Brun of the University of Southern California. The new papers make up “a really interesting body of work.”
These days, deciding which theory of time travel is best is largely a matter of taste. Until someone discovers a closed timelike curve in the wild, or figures out how to build a time machine, no one will know the answer, says Brun. “I don’t expect these will be tested anytime soon. These are ideas. They’re fun to play with.”
Read More: http://www.wired.com/
Quote of the day…
“If Aristotle were alive today he’d have a talk show.”
– Timothy Leary
The Japanese Tradition – Apologizing
“Shazai (謝罪)” — from “The Japanese Tradition” series of videos by Japan Culture Lab — is a useful and entertaining guide to the art of apologetic bowing.
The video provides techniques and tips for the entire spectrum of bows, from the commonplace shallow bow (for casual apologies) to the various forms of ojigi (for serious apologies) — including the long ojigi (used when apologizing to the public for a scandal or product recall) and the perpetual ojigi (to express determination). Also explained is the kneeling bow (used predominantly by ninjas), the grovelling dogeza bow (used when you are unequivocally in the wrong, such as when “caught red-handed in an orgy of evil”), the momentous doge-fuse bow (for the ultimate apology), and the doge-umari bow (the final straw).
via: Pink Tentacle.
The Hedonistic Imperative
This manifesto outlines a strategy to eradicate suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is ambitious, implausible, but technically feasible. It is defended here on ethical utilitarian grounds. Nanotechnology and genetic-engineering allow Homo sapiens to discard the legacy-wetware of our evolutionary past. Post-humans will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world.
The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they served the inclusive fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They can be replaced by a radically different sort of neural architecture. Life-long happiness of an intensity now physiologically unimaginable can become the genetically-preprogrammed norm of mental health. A sketch is offered of when, and why, this major evolutionary transition in the history of life is likely to occur. Possible objections, both practical and moral, are raised and then rebutted.
Today’s images of opiate-addled junkies, and the lever-pressing frenzies of intra-cranially self-stimulating rats, are deceptive. Such stereotypes stigmatise, and falsely discredit, the only remedy for the world’s horrors and everyday discontents that is biologically realistic. For it is misleading to contrast social and intellectual development with perpetual happiness. There need be no such trade-off. States of “dopamine-overdrive” can actually enhance exploratory and goal-directed activity. Hyper-dopaminergic states can also increase the range and diversity of actions an organism finds rewarding. So our descendants may live in a civilisation of well-motivated “high-achievers”, animated by gradients of bliss. Their productivity may far eclipse our own.
Two hundred years ago, before the development of potent synthetic pain-killers or surgical anaesthetics, the notion that “physical” pain could be banished from most people’s lives would have seemed no less bizarre. Most of us in the urban-industrial West now take its daily absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as “mental” pain, too, could one day be superseded is equally counter-intuitive. The technical option of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of political policy and ethical choice.
Much more @ The Hedonistic Imperative
An Invisible Force
The only things I kill are mosquitoes when they are near me and that’s only cause I’m allergic. And when it happens I literally almost cry about it. Something about karma, the universe, and living things just affects me this way. Though I hate any type of insect I will always go out of my way to do everything to get them out of the house without harming them. The idea of harming life is incredibly upsetting for me.
Same thing with the news, that’s why I don’t watch it but instead read about it on the web. I can also never watch horror films or anything gory without high risk of intense nightmares. Btw, I get really furious and upset when someone posts something horrible on a forum or blog without a disclaimer and I inadvertently see pictures. That also triggers many nightmarish nights. I remember when I was around seven, I was watching the news, and there was footage of a massive fire in a Brazilian hotel. And they showed a picture of someone jumping out the window to their death … to this day (and 9/11 footage didn’t help) I have nightmares of that vision. Without judging anyone I literally am another species from those who can watch things like “faces of death,” nothing in my being relates to that existence.
I know I know, I’m a little girl.
But here’s the main thing I wanted to share …
I remember when i was growing up my parents used to switch me boarding schools every year from the age of seven till I finished school. Often in different countries. That meant that I used to get picked on a lot. Up until a certain age (13-14) I never fought back, literally stood there like a martyr and let it happen in complete peace. Then it got out of hand and I started to defend myself, but here’s the odd part … I remember many fights that I never started but that I was winning. And I remember having this almost divine fuse inside me. I remember standing on top of another kid wanting to hit him and physically not being able to move my arm no matter how hard I tried. I just could not do it. Could not bring myself to harm another being any more than was required to defend myself. It is a strange sensation and a beautiful one in retrospect.
I’m not sure if I am describing it correctly, it literally felt like an invisible force holding me back. And almost instantly all the adrenaline and anger would just fade away into a sense of peace … then I would just stand up and walk way.
Now the first part is not uncommon … I have many friends who don’t feel at peace killing anything more aware that a plant. The aversion to graphic imagery is also not uncommon.
But that last thing I have never heard anyone describe it to me as an experience. That doesn’t mean it is unique to me, I just haven’t discussed it with many people in person. In fact I had completely forgotten it until recently.
Now the bad news …
There is a “coherent and significant connection” between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer, researchers have said.
The Italian experts looked at high numbers of tumours and leukaemia in children who live close to Vatican Radio transmitters.
The 60 antennas stand in villages and towns near Rome.
via BBC News – Experts: Vatican Radio transmitters ‘pose cancer risk’.
serge 