Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) : “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Since the beginning of its existence on this planet untold millennia past, life has been a dangerous proposition for all creatures. The big fish eating the little fish has been the model for most interactions between living entities. All living entities have been either predator and/or prey. Evolution needed to develop in each entity methods of recognizing danger and thus trying to ensure that it will be able to replicate itself through procreation. Each species of course has different means of recognizing danger in its environment and various diverse senses for doing so. The importance of these senses varies by species and sometimes varies infra-species. Its own hierarchy of life preserving senses and activities can change in a species as it evolves to meet each new environmental challenge.
As humanity evolved there is no doubt that there were variations in the relative importance of our five senses at different times in our evolutionary history. What many humans believe is our most important attribute is of course the collective of our senses known as intelligence and the ability to reason. We are the singular species of this planet that has developed incredibly complex means of communication leaving us as the seeming masters of our world. Nevertheless, most of what we know of reality is our personal constructs of information that our senses have perceived and then compressed into a usable conception of our world, which despite the breadth of any one individual’s intelligence, is merely an approximation of the whole. However, to continue existence each human must make certain choices based on their personal perception of their environment. Sometimes these choices are successful ad sometimes they are disastrous. Since the arc of human existence has presented an ever-widening range of information, we have learned to edit and approximate much in own personal constructs. An example of this is that behavioral science has determined that we develop pictures in our mind of particular individuals and in our subsequent encounters rely mainly on those original pictures. Anyone who has raised a child knows that it is hard to see them as they grow, as anything more than the infant they were. While it’s true our picture of the child changes with growth, the lasting overlay of impression is usually quite dated. This is at least my conception of human perception.
With this concept in mind let me bring this post to the America of today, illustrated as a microcosm of the difficulty humans have in living with each other. Our politics have become perhaps more polarized and deadlocked than at any point in our history. Many people respond to each new issue that crosses public consciousness based on their personal sense of correctness, informed by a long developed political belief system that structures the nature of their response. The deeper ingrained this belief that there is only one path to political truth, the more mechanical the response becomes, and the less capable becomes the individual’s ability to react to the information from its environment to save itself. Those species unable to evolve to meet each new challenge to their existence became extinct. As humans our evolution has become more than just meeting actual physical challenges, we have evolved to the point that we represent the greatest danger to ourselves. Human existence is now dependent upon collectively being able to comprehend the dangers we face. How can we understand these dangers if our only method of understanding them is filtered through an ideological certainty that categorizes them based rote methodology? This is my attempt to try to make sense of why our political scene today seems so irrationally skewed by the inability to collectively recognize and adapt to dangers.
Can we agree that the information revolution has presented all of us with a dilemma? We are not quite ready or able to absorb all the information about the world that is available and that most of us are bombarded with on a daily basis? All of us, even geniuses, have learned to develop constructs of our environment and of the opinions that inform us. To a greater or lesser degree this allows us to cope with our lives. These human constructs include, but are not limited to, philosophy, religion, politics and economics. Such is the daily assault of information that we perforce need to “pigeonhole” each bit of new data as passes into our consciousness, just so we can seemingly make sense of it. I readily admit to using this shortcut, do you? I’ve come to see though, that this process of fitting prior perceptions into current situations can lead to misunderstanding. Because of that I’ve tried in my life to be self critical of my actions and opinions. As I’ve aged wisdom has taught me how much even a person like me, egotistically awash in intellectual self-esteem, can be completely wrong in any given instance simply because I filter new situations through past perceptions. I believe this is a human trait. Because of that trait, to a greater or lesser degree, our conflicting perceptions handicap our ability to make this world livable for all of us humans. In my own case some here may remember that on numerous occasions I boldly stated I was convinced that Jeb Bush would be this years Republican Presidential Nominee. My wrong conclusion was based on a wealth of information on the Bush family that I’d absorbed, but which kept me from seeing current political reality.
In prehistoric times, in a world of incessant danger the emerging human species had to rely on reacting with quickness and certitude to escaping impending danger. This was true either in the role of being predator and/or prey. Those that equivocated were those whose genetic heritage was not passed on. We are bred to look for patterns of certainty, yet how much of anything in life is really certain? The basis of almost all religion/philosophy is the need to establish a sense of certainty about our lives. Without that certainty, for many of us given our genetic heritage, comes disorientation and fear. This is a fact I believe for all of us, but its primacy of need differs from human to human.
A common complaint of Fundamentalist Religion is that the world is changing too quickly to not only keep up with, but also that change is a downward arc towards human degeneracy. Yet this change and this danger can be mediated if only one would follow the path described by Yahweh, Jesus, Allah or perhaps The Buddha. With that belief firmly rooted those so inclined view all new experience filtered through their pre-conceptions of what life is all about. If you think about it in a political sense you see the same pattern professed by politicians and political partisan from all parts of the political spectrum.
Many Republicans, Conservatives and Right Wingers express their nostalgia for the ”Roaring 20’s”, “Golden 50’s” and/or “The Age of Reagan” as if somehow it was a better world back then. Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and Left Wingers too view the world through their own lens of nostalgia as if the “Roosevelt Era” and the “60’s” were times of clarity. The fact is there are no times of “clarity”, no “Golden Era” and no “better” past to emulate nostalgically. We are here now and it is in this “now” that we need to operate. All of us are genetically hard-wired” to abhor uncertainty in our lives, though some can tolerate the anxiety of it better than others. Therefore we seek broad-ranged “certainty” to dull our anxiety and calm our fears. We all know that the main fear of being human is the certain knowledge of our own mortality, but perhaps peculiar to our species is also the fear of not being remembered, of having not contributed anything to life and of having no purpose.
So all of us strive to quell the fear of uncertainty in ourselves, to ameliorate the anxiety it causes us, to fit our preconceptions into each new situation. We develop philosophies; adhere to religions and view the world through the lens of our personal politics. Fritz Perls, the Founder of Gestalt Psychotherapy, in which I am trained and in the philosophy that I use to live my life, once stated: “I see my role as destroying people’s character”. What he meant was that in our interactions with the world each of us develops a rigid “character”. “Character” is our personal construct of how we wish other humans to see us. He believed and I also believe that the danger of “character” was that it limits human choices in dealing with our environment. “Character” is a construct that developed in tandem with and possibly as an assist to, the civilizing of humanity. It possibly is the reason why tragedy has plagued human history. In an uncertain world the “survivor” hopefully is able to react to each new situation of conflict, danger, excitement, and pleasure in terms of their current feelings/information and not based on past pre-conceptions/premises. An example of the possible dysfunction of character might be a man threatened by someone bigger and stronger, who has the ability to run away, yet whose “character” dictates that he must “man up” and face certain pain. Are there times when one must rely on the certainty of their moral/ethical compass? Absolutely, and to one’s death if need be. However, these “life or death” decisions would serve us better if they are a true response to a present situation, rather than a decision filtered through pre-conception. To make that life changing decision, we’d be better served if we viewed each potential threat and/or pleasure in the present, without pre-judgment?
We see today in the political arena the effect of this search for certainty. The deep divisions that exist between people all arise from the fact they so strongly cling to the “certainties” they adopt to stave off the anxiety of uncertainty. Humanity as a whole must learn to live with the uncertainty that life presents, encounter it in the present moment and in essence “be here now”. Until then the “certainties” that we adopt to keep “uncertainty” away, will keep us from evolving into a species at one with our existence and possibly sow the seeds of our species extinction.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I think that the folks who are nostalgic for the age of Reagan are slidding into alzheimers disease themselves and are nostalgic for a time when the President was our senior dementia in faux paux. The last article on the blog was getting us dogs in the dog pack thinking about the role of religion in controlling things like cohabitude with notions of marriage sanctioned by law and religion. Which brings us to the central issue here on this topic is how the minds of man are controlled. The flock analogy is best because that is the dynamic employed by religions worldwide. The controller annoits himself/herself as Preacher, Rabbi, Imam, Priest, and then takes aim at a collection of humanoids in a given terrain. He needs a pasture to control the flock and some food source. While they are eating, procreating, basking in the sun the preacher lays out the notion of diety and the history of the specie. Sometimes they say origin of the specie but lets not get specious. The preacher has to eat and for him to eat, build his abode, lay out his clothing, fed the wife and kids, he needs to fleece the flock.
Now the flock on the other hand needs the preacher to ease their mind from concerns about tornados, wolves, floods, droughts, and whatnot. So the preacher can rap about floods for example and keep the flock in the pasture. To fleece the flock the preacher needs to lay on a little more rap about creation and the place of man and wife and whatnot. Nowadays, if one is a preacher who employs music then he can also be called a rapper. Once he puts the flock into the pasture, lays down the rap about the place for man and beast and procreation et al and gets them fornicating and growing some fleece, he is in business. The dogs come in when the preacher needs some help keeping them in line. We even help the blind. Of course they are all blind to a large extent. Humans. Cant live with them and cant live without them.
BarkinDog
Oh, there, I said it. Give me a biscuit.
Mike, thanks for your article, for the meditation that it presents too. Usually I don’t get interested in the threads that are on subjects other than the Trayvon Martin case, but this one particularly spoke to me, perhaps because, in its way, it is very germane to that case.
Zimmerman — I see him as someone who couldn’t stand the uncertainty, who couldn’t coexist because he had to have the certainty, and it had to be HIS certainty. Aside from just plain being a liar to get off after committing a crime, I think that has a lot to do with the way he saw the whole event and thus, the way he would describe the whole event. HE didn’t see himself as an aggressor — he was just trying to find out what that guy was doing there — it was his perfectly understandable, perfectly righteous search for certainty that gave him a right to act on his personal feelings of discomfort with the uncertainty of seeing a stranger where HE was not comfortable seeing a stranger.
As to control of the masses by deliberately inflicted fear that can then be manipulated to produce unquestioning political support, the pump has to be primed and then it will work, every time. We have something happening now that I find very irritating as well as astonishing: continuous nameless fear by advertisers. Just recently I learned that snoring could kill me. (Since I was too scared to read the article, I’m not even sure whether it’s just MY snoring, or someone else’s, that could kill me, so I have to bear that uncertainty as well!) A friend of mine is always calling companies to check on whether there are recalls of the products he owns!
But uncertainty is and must remain our constant companion. If we can’t adjust to that, we can’t adjust, period. The good of the chipmunk in the woods who sits up in alarm and checks out the location of the nearby snapped twig is that after he figures out what he thinks the danger is, he takes off in the opposite direction and then forgets about it. We can’t forget about it like chipmunks and we think there is a way of warding off all danger. Even if we shot every single stranger in our neighborhoods, though, we would not be able to banish the continuous uncertainty that is our human inheritance. To know is to be unsure.
When the sheep are are confined to a fenced pasture and the wolves enter the pasture to fleece some of the flock, the barking dog is sometimes called in to run off the wolves. Usually some snarling does the trick and the sheep in the flock populating the pasture come out ok. Put several pastures together and you have a community and then you have wolf police. Sometimes the wolf police call upon help for the dog. Its all for the sheep and the fleecers who are legit. Now the hoodie kid in this instance was perceived by sheep dog to be a wolf. Whether he was a wolf in sheeps clothing is a fact to be determined. When all is said and done, Zimmerman is gonna walk because the sheep on that jury are not gonna wanna take any chances in their own pasture without a guard dog.
Mike S,
Deep post. I agree with your main theme and premises, however, I do have some comments on some of the Darwinism.
Quote:
Except the earliest life forms, microbes (which are still the most abundant life form on Earth), that developed community, symbiosis, altruism, and mutual co-existence, issues which are studied in the realm of sociobiology:
(Abstract). Dr. Lynn Margulis received various scientific awards for her work in that light:
(Endosymbiosis, emphasis added).
Quote:
The greatest extinctions, mass extinctions, were not Darwinian.
For example, the latest mass-extinction 65 m yrs ago (“K-T extinction”), that eradicated ~90% of land creatures, including the dinosaurs, and ~50 of ocean creatures, was caused by an asteroid that became a meteorite, hitting the Earth at the southern boundary of the Gulf of Mexico.
The current Anthropocene Epoch, and its Sixth Mass Extinction event, now ongoing before our eyes, is a result of human behavior at odds with the successful species in the environment.
Human ecocide is causing the ongoing 6th mass-extinction, not because of defects in the species we are destroying at an unprecedented rate, but because of defects in the “most evolved species” (that is our story and we are sticking to it).
Old school Darwinism is inaccurate on several fronts, as is the “selfish genealogy” mythology.
Quote:
One of those “certainties” is old school Darwinism, a mythology, which gave rise to “Social Darwinism” and “Eugenics”, which still lead us in a wrong direction a century later.
And as you say, that direction can be our own extinction.
Mike,
Very interesting article. I have to agree that the Right does seem to be stuck in the past, but I think the true reason for this thinking is their desire to maintain their corporate control of the government and the social mores that must remain in order to control the masses. All of the new information and factual information, including science, just gets in there way of gaining and keeping control and power and money.
This seems to be to be a summation of the theory of social evolution. I’ve had my own pet theories regarding this, which are frankly unsupported opinions based on preconceived notions, so I might write about them on my own blog, and not bore you with the details here. He asks if we are better off lacking the filter of preconception, and I can’t agree that we are. Like it or not, human’s have a limited mental capacity. We must have a means of making decisions, rapidly and without interrupting our daily lives, simply to make it through. An awareness of the existence of these preconceptions is very useful in academia and in decisions regarding long term strategies, but it’s usefulness, as the species exists today, is limited. In the end, we simply have to function and focus on priorities higher than focusing on the mechanics of our thoughts. That is the primary reason that we specialize and sub specialize so many different tasks and functions that society thinks it needs.
As far as working collectively to recognize a threat and react to it in a way that benefits the species as a whole, that is completely counter intuitive to the way evolution works. Evolution is a competitive process, because, well, evolution has made it that way. The strong survive, the weak die out or adapt. This process is wildly skewed when the species as a whole can protect weaker members, but it simply slows adaptive evolution instead of stopping it. The selection process becomes less of one of survival, and more of one of competitive advantage.
I don’t find his argument that religion is a sop to the need for continuity convincing. I believe religion to be one of the ways that humans actually have banded together to avert danger. Look at some of the things that ancient religions have in common. 1. Killing is immoral. That one kind of speaks for itself. If people are trained with the preconception that wasting human life is inherently against it’s interests, then that mitigates murders within a collective. 2. Origin of the species- a shared origin creates commonality within a collective, and understanding helps create a communal basis of the extended family unit. If one has a preconception of how a person came to be, the commonality makes it so that he’s less inclined to remove competitive obstacles with an arrow to the knee. 3. Property rights (theft is wrong). This reduces damage done to the collective by removing the stored resources of a member within that society by another, a competitive act that invites counter acts, typically violence or counter theft. This creates that more stable society that he was referring to. 4. An afterlife- This incentiviises the individual in the collective to adhere to the restrictions on his ability to compete in the market for mating partners. Without that incentive, the rational actor would be less inclined to follow the collective agreement to mitigate dangers.
In other words, it’s not the need for normality that causes people to act the way they do. It’s the need for survival. It’s the need to compete with each other. It’s the need to protect themselves and their family units, because genetics mandate that we fight and strive continuously to advance not just our own DNA, but the DNA of those we identify with, because if we view them as “like us”, we inherently desire those genetic traits to be passed on. Without competition, the process of evolution stops. Cold. Without death, we don’t grow. It’s the old yin/yang of life. We have to have a means to try our DNA against the dangers of the environment in order for the genetic code to continue to evolve. Until we master genetic engineering. Then all evolution theories kind of go out the window. I personally want some extra arms. And a knee that is immune to arrows.
“The fact is there are no times of ‘clarity’, no ‘Golden Era’ and no ‘better’ past to emulate nostalgically. We are here now and it is in this ‘now’ that we need to operate.”
Although modern physics is starting to suggest that time may not be as we perceive it, I think in many ways this is a moot point even if we are technologically one day able to understand time in a different way than we do now. Unless the human brain fundamentally changes, the perception of time is as being linear and that it is so is fundamental to our ability to quantify. Our ability to quantify is the root of all understanding and logic; the ability to ask of a thing what is it in itself and derive an answer. Tangentially, your statement reveals the problem with nostalgia is that it is a sense “out of time”. The perception of the past is skewed by the perception of the now. As the Buddha said, “There is only one time when it is essential to awaken. That time is now.” To let the information of the past inform your decision making in the now is only prudent, but romanticizing the past is as fictional and faulty a perception as a delusion in the present.
“All of us are genetically hard-wired to abhor uncertainty in our lives, though some can tolerate the anxiety of it better than others. Therefore we seek broad-ranged ‘certainty’ to dull our anxiety and calm our fears. We all know that the main fear of being human is the certain knowledge of our own mortality, but perhaps peculiar to our species is also the fear of not being remembered, of having not contributed anything to life and of having no purpose.”
A concise summation of an idea that I recognize as percolating through the layers of past conversation. In my house as a child, there were a few maxims that fluttered about and the ones with utility stuck with me over the years. It is perhaps one of these maxims that better prepared me for the topic of uncertainty. “The only constant is change.” When I first read about quantum mechanics and how uncertainty figured into that system, it was a world changing moment. Uncertainty as a basic property of the universe? How could this be? For weeks the idea troubled me. I was plagued by uncertainty. It really bothered me. Then there was a moment of clarity when I realized that the maxim “the only constant is change” requires uncertainty. Uncertainty was in itself certain. I found that idea to be strangely comforting and the fear of uncertainty disappeared, never to return. You cannot change the nature of uncertainty. It is built in to everything. To fear uncertainty is as irrational as fearing hydrogen.
Great article, Mike. Maybe your finest yet.
Dredd- You must have posted your comment as I was writing mine. I have zero background in biology- I hated the subject in college, and stuck to physics and chemistry for my ME. The article was very interesting, but I really and truly hate biology, so I doubt I’ll spend the time necessary to educate myself to the point I can comment on that theory intelligently.
Darwinism is really more of an exercise in logic than actual scientific process. Hopefully, it’s more of a narrative theory that we work on till we disprove it, or modify it to correct for existing understanding. I wanted to add that religion doesn’t provide the answers we need in the environment that exists today, but adaptation of DNA and the triggers that we use to behave as a species is far to slow to meet the current issues. Are we headed towards ecological damage induced extinction? Probably not. We really are very, very good at surviving as a species. Can there be an apocalyptic style breakdown of human society? Yep. The result, I think, would be a mass redux in human population, followed by a new barbaric period, followed by another modern civilization. The same rule that applies to life applies to species- they all die. Whether or not humans die or simply evolve into something else is the key. I so wish I had a time machine. How will a future society learn from that kind of event? Will preconceptions be hardwired to a point different from today? Will they create a “religion” where care and minimization of the natural resources becomes the new hardwired “moral” preconception that guides a person’s choices?
But I seem to have talked myself into agreeing with the original post. Hate it when I do that. Basically, I agree with the fact that we aren’t currently situated to best mitigate against global disaster. However, it’s not because of a desire for certainty that motivates irrational behavior- it’s the desire for competition. The certainty desire only comes into effect within a single model of community,
“However, it’s not because of a desire for certainty that motivates irrational behavior- it’s the desire for competition.”
Fallacy of simple cause. There are more roots than one for the weed of irrational behavior. A desire for certainty and competition are but two of many causes of irrationality.
“The certainty desire only comes into effect within a single model of community,”
And yet the desire for certainty as a mechanism comes into play across every model of community as no communities composed by humans are homogeneously unafraid of uncertainty.
“Then there was a moment of clarity when I realized that the maxim “the only constant is change” requires uncertainty.”
Gene,
Perhaps it’s our long relationship here, or maybe our agreement on many issues, but you seem to be the only commenter who gets what I’m trying to convey. This is not a “put down” of the other comments, but of my own inability to clearly convey a point. I was not writing about evolution, biology, political orientation, or to infer even that I’m in any better position than anyone else to accept my environment openly, without pre-conceptions fogging my vision and judgment. Each human is an organism, interacting not only with other organisms, but also with an environment including social constructs and the material world. Optimal interaction requires utilizing experiential material earned through growth/education, with an unfiltered view of our current environment in the here and now. The widespread failure to do this has led to much of the strife and horror of human history, while dissipating the pleasures each of us can have in our own lives and give to others.
Mike,
I thought you conveyed your point quite clearly. Just so, the interaction of presenter and audience is one of influence. The best a presenter can do is influence the perceptions of the audience. Or as my grandfather used to say, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
CLH 1, May 19, 2012 at 11:56 am
Dredd- You must have posted your comment as I was writing mine.
==================================
You write well.
I didn’t mention religion, as you did.
So let me say that I subscribe to the old adage “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton). Acton applied it equally to religious endeavors and to secular endeavors, equating “the Pope is infallible” with “the King can do no wrong.”
The greatest danger to the human species, and all those we threaten today, is misuse of power through corruption.
Both religion and government are the greatest threats to the species, and it is growing more deadly dangerous with every passing day.
Excellent article, Mike. What is so interesting, is based upon the comments you’ve received so far on the blog post, no one gets it, save one. Everyone has their own agenda for sure, as well as their own hard wired perceptions. They read the piece, and respond based on those pre conceived expectations. It’s notable that the comments themselves, so fully support your essay.
Dredd, this is an absolutely interesting comment. I noticed the theme in passing. But Mike managed to pull me on into the interesting axis between the necessity to form concepts and the too easy concepts of prejudice, which admittedly have been on my mind occasionally during the last decade.
I by the way react pretty strongly to the Darwinian line of thought. It was central in all the Nazi period thesis in my field I read. It seemed to be the Nazi core assumption. To what extend is it related to winners and losers?
Something I am struggling with in this age of communication, as an obstinate outsider, is that my core assumption, or concept if you like, if the frightening aspect of masses, surfacing in the topic Malisha alludes to–somehow ironically it feels, as the “lynch mob”–is not a completely outdated concept of the masses in the sense of majorities.
Now I should try to get that into short sentences. Right? And seriously reflect if I really understand American punctuation rules?
“theses”. Well yes, the telephone rings. not that one should try to look for subterfuges, really.
Have you read EINSTEIN’S DREAMS by Alan Lightman?
I didn’t get that book either but I really did appreciate it!
leander22 1, May 19, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Dredd, this is an absolutely interesting comment. I noticed the theme in passing. But Mike managed to pull me on into the interesting axis between the necessity to form concepts and the too easy concepts of prejudice, which admittedly have been on my mind occasionally during the last decade.
I by the way react pretty strongly to the Darwinian line of thought. It was central in all the Nazi period thesis in my field I read. It seemed to be the Nazi core assumption. To what extend is it related to winners and losers?
Something I am struggling with in this age of communication, as an obstinate outsider, is that my core assumption, or concept if you like, if the frightening aspect of masses, surfacing in the topic Malisha alludes to–somehow ironically it feels, as the “lynch mob”–is not a completely outdated concept of the masses in the sense of majorities.
Now I should try to get that into short sentences. Right? And seriously reflect if I really understand American punctuation rules?
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There is “schmoozing” and there is “blogging.”
The former is engendered by wanting to replace uncertainty with certainty, the subject Mike S blogged about.
Like Einstein, Darwin was misunderstood, so social Darwinism and later Eugenics, both psychotic interpretations of Darwin’s work, emerged.
As you say, the NAZI realm loved both of those sicko myths. But truth be known, some of our own U.S. propagandists in the U.S.eh? were the idols of NAZI propagandists, not the other way around.
A lot of the evolutionary pollution that took place after Darwin was because biologists left the study of microbes, which Darwin and contemporaries were quite focused on, to concentrate on notions of human evolution.
They abandoned cosmology which covered ~14 billion years of evolution, to focus on about the last million years, which is like trying to figure yourself out based on the last two seconds you just experienced.
They abandoned the study of microbes, the oldest and most abundant life forms, who are the creators of ~98% of our genes (infamously called “junk genes” until recently) and who compose about ~98% of the cell quantity in us.
It is only very recently that they are getting back to the study of microbes in any significant quantity and quality.
You wrote:
Read “The Ways of Bernays” for my take on this phenomenon.
And yes, the mob psychology has been socially engineered, and yes again, it is scary as hell.
“There is ‘schmoozing’ and there is ‘blogging.’ The former is engendered by wanting to replace uncertainty with certainty, the subject Mike S blogged about.”
Then there is thread-jacking and shameless self-promotion.
Uncertainty is built into the fabric of reality, but somethings are predictable with a high degree of certainty. Predictable as in consistent. Now what was that Emerson said about consistency again?
Mike:
Jeb knows better than to run against an incumbent. Next term should be better for him.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm
“There is ‘schmoozing’ and there is ‘blogging.’ The former is engendered by wanting to replace uncertainty with certainty, the subject Mike S blogged about.”
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The schmoozing is self-evident self promotion, a building clans, and shameless self promotion of both.
With some religious fervor about who can post on what comment on what, in ad hoc fashion without even any mores.
Now what was that Emerson said about consistency again?
Dredd,
I’m sorry, but you lost your “Taken Seriously” badge when you started claiming microbes practice science and religion. And if you don’t like people pointing to your persistent threadjacking? Stop doing it. You’re free to do it all you like, just so, I’m free to point it out all I like. If you don’t like that? Too bad. That free speech, she is a double edged sword. The solution rests with you. You want to swing the conversation to your pet subject ad nauseum? I want to talk about what Mike’s post was about: the fear of uncertainty. Would you like it if people came to your blog and persistently tried to change the subject of threads there to match their agenda while promoting themselves relentlessly? No. If you don’t like it when others call you out for doing exactly that on someone else’s blog, I suggest that’s your problem. But at least you’re consistent. So you got that going for you. Which is nice.
“The Lure of Certainty is Fear of Uncertainty”
After having used lures of various sorts in the oceans and streams of Alaska, The Yukon, British Columbia, and lots of other places north and south, I know that “all lures are local”, if you know what I mean.
All blogs tend to be that way. I mean blogs are a stream of letters that flow by like lures, localize for your individual zoo and zookeepers.
That is why blogs have old timey bloggers, blood vowel bloggers, and the magnet-sponge schmoozers who Darwinianly evolve into a form of encounter group leader, gone all gangy, keyboard poundy, spanky, and even skanky all over the place.
Way cool to watch, like a piranha feeding frenzy.
If you do not support the blog law, which does not even exist until it is made up at any given time, you will bring down the uncertainty police whose fingers quiver just above the grimy, spit-pocked surface of keyboards that exit only for certainty reasons.
The sophistry of sophistication, the certainty of insecurity, the hilarity of illusion, all in one overly salted alphabet soup of “I have agreed with you more than any other alphabet stream.”
Cushy. Inane. Schmoozy. Banal.
Flashing badges like porn stars flashing lures.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Dredd,
I’m sorry
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Who are you protecting?
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Dredd,
I’m sorry, but you lost your “Taken Seriously” badge
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I wasn’t aware that you were passing out taken seriously badges for the chosen, and removing them from the excommunicated.
Are you a blog Priest, Bishop, Pope or what?
The high priest of spontaneous law, the spirit of Gene H, master of all truth on The Jonathan Turley Blog?
I would recommend some sort of format announcement, with or without trumpets, and a little graphic badge by your handle, which informs everyone that they must comply with your dictates, or suffer keyboard pounding from Approval Central, the G ene spot.
It is like being prosecuted by the little bitch queen who always, upon the presentation of some imagined charges of wrong doing, “Off with their Head.”
Too damn funny!
Keep it up Gene H, all this yessah massah otherlyness is boring.
You da man!
Nal 1, May 19, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Mike:
I was convinced that Jeb Bush would be this years Republican Presidential Nominee.
Jeb knows better than to run against an incumbent. Next term should be better for him.
=====================================
I like it, Bush III.
Awwww. Did Dredd’s wittle feelin’s get hurt? If you want to be taken seriously, might I suggest that 1) you don’t pimp ridiculous ideas like microbes practice science and religion and then expect to considered a serious commentator on the nature of biology let alone science and 2) that you desist in trying to hijack this blog whenever you get the chance. I would also suggest this isn’t your blog nor are you a contributor like Mike is here, Dredd. I don’t care if you “comply with my dictates” or not. I am, however, going to point out your behavior of threadjacking when you engage in it but especially when the inherent topic is both interesting and relevant. The topic of this thread isn’t related to your pet subject just because someone said the word “Darwin” and got a Pavlovian response from you. You’re as bad as Larry when someone mentions Lincoln or the Civil War. Your introduction of it into the stream of conversation is a non-sequitur. If you don’t like that this was pointed out? Tough. Fear of uncertainty is a terrible thing.
Gene H,
…
Fear of uncertainty is a terrible thing.
=============================
If you say so.
You couldn’t define certainty if your life depended on it, unless you were with your homies.
You have been around here long enough to have let the illusion of certainty sink in such that you are the blog savior, the keeper of all that is sanctified.
Fine with me, just take the frigging “Taken Seriously” badge back (I did not ask for it in the first place, never heard of it in the second place, you can stick it you know where in the third place, yada yada yada), and please do not give me any more badges other than “Gene H can’t read this post badge, which I would appreciate.
Thank you, all of you.
CLH 1, May 19, 2012 at 11:29 am
This seems to be to be a summation of the theory of social evolution
======================================================
They said:
Nevertheless, I have to say CLH, your version of the story did seem to be more certain, Certain, CERTAIN.
Gosh, one person’s “certainty” may be another person’s “uncertainty” it would seem.
Gosh II, I feel thirsty for some reason.
I never claimed to be blog savior, Dredd. If you think I am, that would be just another error in your thinking. As to defining uncertainty? Considering the abuse you pile upon the definitions of the words like “science” and “religion” in your tortured effort to make Midicholorians real instead of something from a bad George Lucas movie, I think I’ll define uncertainty as:
uncertainty \-tən-tē\, n.,
1: the quality or state of being uncertain : doubt
2: something that is uncertain
and related,
uncertain \ˌən-ˈsər-tən\, adj.,
1: indefinite, indeterminate
2: not certain to occur : problematical
3: not reliable : untrustworthy
4a : not known beyond doubt : dubious b : not having certain knowledge : doubtful c : not clearly identified or defined
5: not constant : variable, fitful
I know. Grandpa’s dictionary again. Too bad for you words don’t mean what you want them to just because you want them to. You didn’t get the badge you wanted, but you did earn the “Can’t Understand the Dictionary or the Proper Meaning of Words Badge” some time ago. Nobody will ever be able to take that from you. Where you choose to stick it is your business but I suggest that your fascination with bodily orifices be limited to your own. For many reasons.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 3:20 pm
I never claimed to be blog savior, Dredd. If you think I am, that would be just another error in your thinking. As to defining uncertainty? Considering the abuse you pile upon the definitions of the words like “science” and “religion”
=======================================
Why don’t you just post a blog about it.
It would have the appearance of authority, giving you an advantage in this place of power surges.
You could surge ahead, onward, and upwards.
Think of all the badges you could then had out!
And you could indict me for abuse of definition, by quoting scientists of all things.
A scientist says “molecular machine”, Dredd quotes that scientist, so “Off With His Badge!”
Another scientist (a famous sociobiologist) says that microbes practice altruism, then Dredd quotes another source that says “altruism is a fundamental essence of religion”, so “Off With His Badge!”
C’mon Gene H, please blog about it.
It would be so officious.
A certainty in uncertainty is a statement of the universal and unavoidable nature of uncertainty, therefor, it is a recognition that uncertainty exists. A=A. Again, definitions of words have boundaries. Discrete objects and concepts must be defined before you can explore their relationships to one another. If words didn’t have discrete utility, there wouldn’t be so many of them required to describe the enormously large set that is the universe. You cannot define uncertainty without being certain of the meaning of the concept. You don’t really understand language. That’s how you get ridiculous conclusions like microbes practice science or religion. You don’t understand the boundary of words and the value of discrete concepts. That you have a reading comprehension problem is both evident and your problem, Dredd. You are easily confused. Again, you have lots of information. You just aren’t very good at processing it into any integrated knowledge that comports with understanding.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 3:38 pm
A certainty in uncertainty is a statement of the universal and unavoidable nature of uncertainty, therefor, it is a recognition that uncertainty exists. A=A. Again, definitions of words have boundaries. Discrete objects and concepts must be defined before you can explore their relationships to one another. If words didn’t have discrete utility, there wouldn’t be so many of them required to describe the enormously large set that is the universe. You cannot define uncertainty without being certain of the meaning of the concept. You don’t really understand language. That’s how you get ridiculous conclusions like microbes practice science or religion. You don’t understand the boundary of words and the value of discrete concepts. That you have a reading comprehension problem is both evident and your problem, Dredd. You are easily confused. Again, you have lots of information. You just aren’t very good at processing it into any integrated knowledge that comports with understanding.
======================================
Mike S feels your need for certainty.
So do I, but he is the one who must translate grandpa’s dictionary for you.
“Many people respond to each new issue that crosses public consciousness based on their personal sense of correctness, informed by a long developed political belief system that structures the nature of their response.”
And it may be that the specifics of their brains contribute to this.
While the following is about liberal v conservative, it may help in understanding why some people deal better with uncertainty than others.
It may help to explain why so many ultra-conservatives need to gain certainty by turning their uncertainties to their God.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/cp-pva040511.php
[block quote]
Political views are reflected in brain structure
We all know that people at opposite ends of the political spectrum often really can’t see eye to eye. Now, a new report published online on April 7th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveals that those differences in political orientation are tied to differences in the very structures of our brains.
Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent with reports showing a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting information and a greater ability of conservatives to recognize a threat, the researchers say.
“Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual’s political orientation,” said Ryota Kanai of the University College London. “Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure.”
Kanai said his study was prompted by reports from others showing greater anterior cingulate cortex response to conflicting information among liberals. “That was the first neuroscientific evidence for biological differences between liberals and conservatives,” he explained.
There had also been many prior psychological reports showing that conservatives are more sensitive to threat or anxiety in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences. Kanai’s team suspected that such fundamental differences in personality might show up in the brain.
And, indeed, that’s exactly what they found. Kanai says they can’t yet say for sure which came first. It’s possible that brain structure isn’t set in early life, but rather can be shaped over time by our experiences. And, of course, some people have been known to change their views over the course of a lifetime.
It’s also true that our political persuasions can fall into many more categories than liberal and conservative. “In principle, our research method can be applied to find brain structure differences in political dimensions other than the simplistic left- versus right-wingers,” Kanai said. Perhaps differences in the brain explain why some people really have no interest in politics at all or why some people line up for Macs while others stick with their PCs. All of these tendencies may be related in interesting ways to the peculiarities of our personalities and in turn to the way our brains are put together.
Still, Kanai cautioned against taking the findings too far, citing many uncertainties about how the correlations they see come about.
“It’s very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions,” he said. “More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude.”
[end block quote]
I look forward to the results of additional studies. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the actual study. Hope it wasn’t a hoax.
bettykath,
No, it wasn’t a hoax. Here’s a link to the study. The abstract is free, but you have to pay to download the study proper.
“Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults” by Ryota Kanai, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth and Geraint Rees
bettykath,
My bad! I thought I was linking to a different service. You can indeed get the entire report for free from the link above or this link takes you directly to a .pdf of the article.
bettykath 1, May 19, 2012 at 3:43 pm
“Many people respond to each new issue that crosses public consciousness based on their personal sense of correctness, informed by a long developed political belief system that structures the nature of their response.”
And it may be that the specifics of their brains contribute to this.
….
I look forward to the results of additional studies. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the actual study. Hope it wasn’t a hoax.
===================================
One place I suggest that you watch, to satisfy your curiosity, is The Human Microbiome Congress, an entity compose of worldwide microbiologists.
Five decades ago, old school Darwinism began to crumble and the dictionaries began to get way too brown and dusty to be used anymore.
The revolution in science that is going to take place, will probably cause some shootouts in old book stores that harbor grandpa’s dictionaries.
Screw them.
Focus on the oldest life forms, the most prevalent life forms, the life forms that will be here if humanity destroys itself.
The microbes.
There was a brain study done at Washington University Renard School about people with strong political affiliations. The very learned professor who orchestrated the study left with a great deal of disgust. He had tended to the subjects who were Barry Goldwater Republicans in 1964. He summed up the study of that brain wave group: Cant teach an idjit nuthin.
Gene,
We must have been raised in the same household for “the only constant is change” was one of the main themes of discussion at the family dinner table. (You were probably sitting next to my brother in a time warp chair.)
Understanding history and a solid education in the culture of different religions and philosophies might help one in anticipating change and preparing for it but the uncertainty of life was always present and should be expected around every corner. This was not a presentation of fear … it was a presentation of practicality.
Gyges recommended a book to me awhile ago which I read. Buddhism in Thailand is most interesting in its acceptance of uncertainty and change. Mai Pen Rai (never mind) sums it up nicely.
Dredd,
lol, You didn’t even translate what I said properly. I have no need for certainty. I think Mike deals with it well too based on his post. I understand uncertainty as immutable and have integrated that into my understanding of the world. Again, to fear uncertainty is as irrational as fearing hydrogen.
But let’s look at your translation skills. Science and religion are both human sociological constructs. Microbes no more practice science or religion than a rock is a physicist because it rolls down hill or a lifeform is a Taoist because it instinctively chooses the path of least resistance. You don’t translate anything other than gibberish when you insist microbes practice science and religion, but if it makes you feel better to think you do, by all means, think that. I’m not discouraging your delusions. Just pointing them out. Carry on, Young Jedi.
Blouise,
Exactly.
Blouise,
I may have recommended this book before, but it’s a remarkable tool. It was originally developed to train Mossad spies, er, um, field agents. “An Elementary Approach to Thinking Under Uncertainty” by Ruth Beyth-Maron and Shlomith Dekel. It’s only about a 150 pages long, but it is a powerful 150 pages.
A two part screed.
I think the President summed it up nicely when he said in a moment of unguarded truth:
“Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”"
Guardian UK.
Stating it thus in no way implies that your article, Mike, can be dispatched with a throw-away quote. It can’t, but the recognition that certainty and fear are twin demons and hobble a culture is playing out around us daily. I was amused that the kerfuffle Obama’s remark generated had nothing to do with what he was actually saying about the state of our society and those implications but cast as an attack on religion. LOL, sort of a meta circle-jerk of intellectual dysfunction when a more measured examination of the subject may have actually done some good.
You Mike, lived through the Golden 50s as did I and we know that they were not golden for all but a narrow sliver of he population. But in their last years and into the 60s they did sow the seeds of a Renascence that was a grand embrace of uncertainty in science and culture. Why was that?
From Article: “We are bred to look for patterns of certainty, yet how much of anything in life is really certain? The basis of almost all religion/philosophy is the need to establish a sense of certainty about our lives. Without that certainty, for many of us given our genetic heritage, comes disorientation and fear. This is a fact I believe for all of us, but its primacy of need differs from human to human.”
With all due respect I disagree, sorta’. All humans have the same needs and it’s only when they are met can uncertainty be examined and embraced. It all comes down to wealth, some measure thereof, and its distribution at some depth and breath of a society. It’s a balance among need, expectations and stability through time.
I equate uncertainty with embracing change but contend that change, for most of human history, has had as its aim meeting some very basic human needs. Basic security in ones needs is the need for a stable food supply, physical security from others as well as against the predation of ones own rulers and elites, and the freedom of thought and action a predictably lengthy period of stability in such matters engenders. To embrace change or the unpredictable result of actions taken today that are dramatically different, unprecedented, is a luxury.
The 50s saw an explosion of wealth, pent-up demand and for the great numbers of skilled and semi-skilled workers, the rise of job/economic stability through their unions. In the interest of stability unions traded money for tenure, retirement, health care. Between blue-collar wages, job security and the GI Bill three generations of college graduates were absolutely guaranteed in numbers not before even dreamed of in this country. For a crucial number of people in the society uncertainty in meeting basic needs was banished and there was money and time left over.
I take a very simple view of what happened next, the part of the population that didn’t have the wealth, mobility and freedom started demanding a piece of that pie and large numbers of people in the other half of the society that did have those things embraced the unpredictability of remaking their society:
maybe the student demonstrators against the war were right;
maybe women should be able to work in any job and get equal pay;
maybe people of color should be able to vote without fear and move into previously segregated parts of a cities;
maybe leaving family planning up to families was a good idea and women having privacy rights were legally overdue;
maybe integrating a child’s world and providing equal education to satisfy the need for the broad horizon of the future was a good thing;
maybe we as a society would be remiss, morally, if we did not provide health care for the sick, food for the hungry, and housing for the poor;
maybe the disabled are dis-serviced by being reduced to begging (by law) and integration of them needs to be undertaken and etc., etc., etc.
Oh, yea, the moon, we can do that, hell yea, and the government should hand out scholarships for engineering degrees like candy to kids to help do it.
I’m not minimizing that every gain was hard fought (and fought for years, daily) but the society had the stability- the lack of uncertainty in meeting basic needs- to just jump off that cliff into a greater uncertainty with some vague faith that whatever the outcome, it would be better. Just somehow, better. We may remember the names of some of the prominent combatants on all sides of those battles and debates but there was a silent, secure portion of the society that just let the flow carry them along. I knew plenty of those people. They didn’t agitate for anything or push back against the agitation, they just didn’t fear the changes they knew (or or alluded they knew) were coming. The future was not a scary place, come what may.
The altruism of embracing uncertainty, the big uncertainties and the little ones, is IMO a luxury brought with very good times or very bad times. We either have to have the luxury, physical and intellectual, to do it or it must be a last grasp at survival. Until the society (or individual) can banish the instability in meeting their basic needs there isn’t the breathing-room required to embrace uncertainty as a multitude of individuals. Too much is riding on every decision.
bettykath 1, May 19, 2012 at 3:43 pm
If you want to read some relevant books on why you have the political views you and others have, consider these books:
The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (G. Lakoff)
Moral politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t. (G. Lakoff)
And, since you mentioned some material that mentions the size of the amygdala, consider:
(Toxic Bridge To Everywhere). See the video of Professor LeDoux, a respected authority on the amygdala, and links to Professor Lakoff’s many works.
Read some of their books or papers too perhaps, because your mind will be blown.
Mike, Thanks for the article. I’ve struggled with why some family members need so much structure in their lives. It’s possible that their need for certainty is at the root of it. And why they turn so much over to their God to deal with, as in, “I don’t understand it, I can’t deal with it, so I give it to God (or Jesus)”.
Two young girls, same age, removed from the house due a chimney fire. One is matter of fact, in the moment: we’re safe, can I get my coat? The other is worrying, in the future: what if the house burns down, what if we freeze out here, where are the fire trucks, are we going to have supper, where will we sleep tonight.
The difference in the degree of anxiety between them was obvious. The first didn’t need the certainty of answers to all the questions asked by the second who was nearly hysterical by the uncertainties. I think the differences were wired in at birth, and probably influenced by experiences that exaggerated the differences. The second has found ways of coping with the anxiety of uncertainty.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Dredd,
…
Science and religion are both human sociological constructs.
===================================
You keep reading from grandpa’s dictionary, which as I said before, is a foreign language to me.
Because, when someone tells me “science did not exist before humans” and “religion did not exist before humans”, I understand where that is coming from.
Uncertainty.
Dredd,
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve read Lakoff’s “Don’t think of an elephant”.
No, Dredd.
Not uncertainty.
Meaning. Words without meaning are as useful as laws without enforcement, which is to say not at all. You don’t get to change the meaning of words to suit your pet theories. Well, you can. You just look like a fool when you do it.
bettykath 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Dredd,
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve read Lakoff’s “Don’t think of an elephant”.
=====================================
I read a lot of his papers and presentations.
I was unnerved, when he went contrary to Chomsky, seeing as how he was a student of Chomsky, but I got over the uncertainty.
These issues are so wide and deep that I can allow the words to change in meaning as the knowledge changes our perception.
He is a formidable scholar, as is Chomsky.
They do not see each other as enemies simply because they have some uncertainty between them.
That makes them more certain to me, I mean I certainly respect both of them and even try, upon occasion, to figure out which one is closer to the mystery under discussion.
I am looking for a book or paper that confirms a hypothesis I have, concerning the amygdala.
It is stimulated by Professor LeDoux (see video at bottom of link “Toxic Bridge To Everywhere” above).
He points out that the amygdala is not just the two almond shaped entities in our brain, but that there are “circuits / roots” that expand it to be much larger, even physically, than once thought.
It gets ALL sensory input (sound, vision, taste, smell, feel, etc) before the conscious brain gets a shot at that info.
So, since it is obvious that the various cultures of the world are so very different one from the other, I surmise that a significant portion of the amygdala is formed by our society around us (“it takes a village to raise a child”), by our experience in those societies.
Therefore, the smaller portion of the amygdala, famous for dealing with “fear” (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post), is probable quite similar at its most primitive form, but from there on out I think it is different in different societies because experience within that particular society forms brain circuitry.
Anyway, it is something I hope to consider further before I blow up my beer laboratory.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:51 pm
No, Dredd.
Not uncertainty.
Meaning. Words without meaning are as useful as laws without enforcement, which is to say not at all. You don’t get to change the meaning of words to suit your pet theories. Well, you can. You just look like a fool when you do it.
===================================
Enhance the meaning Gene H, enhance the meaning.
A word without enhancement is an extinct word.
You remind me of the ad that was on TV some years ago, where the proprietor of a store was afraid to advertise the products because “someone would come in and purchase it, then there would not be any more product.”
Grandpa’s old words will die unless they move on dot org brother.
Get jiggy wid it for heaven sake!
Gene, thanks for the link to the study. I read it. Have to lie down now and let my brain rest.
A word without a socially agreed upon common meaning is gibberish. “Fish” does not mean “bicycle” just because you think you’ve “enhanced the meaning”. If you say “I’m going to ride my fish to the park today” people will still look at you like you are crazy. If you explain to them that you’ve “enhanced the meaning” of the word “fish”, you’ll simply remove all doubt that there is something wrong with the way your brain processes language. Just like “torture” is still torture even if you call it “enhanced interrogation”. Words have meaning, Dredd. They have meaning for a reason: commonality of language in describing concepts is required for communication to be effective. Without it, language descends into noise devoid of meaningful information. When you make up your own meanings to words (assuming you aren’t coining terms), that’s either foolish, dumb and/or a form of agnosia or other mental defect.
Like I said, Dredd. I’m not discouraging your delusion. Just pointing it out.
Dredd,
“He points out that the amygdala is not just the two almond shaped entities in our brain, but that there are “circuits / roots” that expand it to be much larger, even physically, than once thought.
It gets ALL sensory input (sound, vision, taste, smell, feel, etc) before the conscious brain gets a shot at that info. ”
————————–
Ah, so that’s where our intuition resides.
================
“‘fear”’ (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post)”
——————————
It may be a quibble but I don’t think that “fear of uncertainty” (what Mike said) is quite the same thing as “fear”.
=====================
“So, since it is obvious that the various cultures of the world are so very different one from the other, I surmise that a significant portion of the amygdala is formed by our society around us (‘it takes a village to raise a child’), by our experience in those societies.”
——————–
If you find such a study, I’d like to read about it. The actual studies use $.50 words that are hard on my brain.
“Therefore, the smaller portion of the amygdala, famous for dealing with “fear” (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post), is probable quite similar at its most primitive form, but from there on out I think it is different in different societies because experience within that particular society forms brain circuitry.”
Dredd,
The research on the amygdala is certainly interesting stuff, but I think needs far more time before it becomes gospel. I think that about all human brain research because it seems to me that their presentation as understanding is jumping the gun. I am trained as a psychotherapist in the Existential-Holistic tradition. Therefore I see “brain research” as useful, but somewhat off the mark. I believe and my life has personally taught me, to trust the wisdom of my organism (my whole). Brain research to me is hampered by the supposition brought on by the “mind-body split” concept popularized by Christianity. Existential-Holistic belief denies that all intelligence is resident in the brain area of the organism. Our intelligence is a function of our entire organism and to see the brain as sole controller of our bodies wisdom and functionality is to imprint religious philosophy upon science. I live with another
man’s heart inside me, literally, and luckily that heart has allowed itself to become one with my organism. The “I” that I see myself as is, a single organism composed of many parts, that equally contribute to the wellness of the whole. As an example, if when I am dealing with someone annoying the muscles in my ass begin to clinch, telling me that this person is a pain in my ass. That pain is the wisdom of emotion and as much as they may differ, scientists have not come close to detecting a proven causal link.
However, I wasn’t using “fear” and “uncertainty” as equivalents, or even companions. That is why I said early on, that at that point in time, Gene was the only one who got my drift. My point is that the need for “certainty” has been hard-wired into us as a survival mechanism. As human life has multiplied and multiplied again in complexity, the ability to be certain about anything has diminished, yet we still look to find it by grasping as what I see as “straws” namely religion, philosophy and political “Isms”. Our need to fill the complex pattern of life we see (completing the Gestalt) leads us towards these palliatives. The irony is of course that the more we seek refuge in constants (certainties) the farther adrift we become.
FWIW, different heading: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE CHANGE!”:
My dad was less likely to state the maxim that the only constant is change than its corollary: adapt or die.
I think adaption, which subsumes competition, is the Darwinian touch stone of surviving changing conditions.
For my dad, change was opportunity, “every knock a boost” for the one who is prepared and has faith — a faith in one’s self and the abilities of others. The most important part of a child’s education was developing an appreciation for and an ability to handle change — cause it’s gonna happen.
He also said and demonstrated:
“Discover what you can handle by going beyond what you know you.”
“Knowledge is an important asset, but creativity is a talent; you can only turn talents into skills, not assets. Develop your talents.”
And my fave:
“All things in moderation including same.”
I think it is less a matter of swapping uncertainty for certainty than it is of exchanging faith for certitude — to avoid change by denying it, or handle change by decrying new ways.
Certitude is a death sentence in a changing environment
Oro,
I think I would have liked your dad. He reminds me of my grandfather.
Speaking of bad George Lucas films and moments of uncertainty, I actually forced myself to watch more of the film “Red Tails” than I wanted before giving up on it entirely.
The film was SO AWFUL that I actually wondered whether I was being racist in my hatred of it. But, upon further reflection on the cliche characters and stilted dialogue that only Lucas can bring to the screen without blushing, I was CERTAIN that it was just a terrible movie.
And another thing, it’s the fear of uncertainty associated with induction, as opposed to deduction, that makes biology an ‘ugly science.’
Sometimes you just have to lean into change as resistance creates fear and tension.
From the opening paragraph of John Dewey’s Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920):
Apropos of the plastic human organism’s development of learned habit as its signature response to environmental uncertainty, I recommend one of the best discourses on the subject — a classic by nineteenth century American mathematician/logician/scientist Charles Sanders Peirce entitled The Fixation of Belief.
We humans inculcate in ourselves, though the manipulation of linguistic symbols (audible and visible), the
beliefshabits that guide our responses to the physical and metaphysical (absent in animals) environment. With the conquest of immediate environmental needs, we spend much of the rest of our lives in a metaphysical fantasy of our own linguistic creation and respond more to myth than to anything real — as corporate marketing gurus and their politician clients realize only too well.From “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibalism,” by Charles Sanders Peirce (manuscript, 1897):
Um, after re-reading Mike’s article, and Gene’s rebuttal, I do seem to be making the exact point Mike was trying to convey. Oh well. I probably define the need for certainty. I have written before about my military experience, and that experience does tend to be the event that I relate everything else to, mainly because it was pretty freaking scary and uncertain. I oversimplified the issue, because I didn’t really understand it. I pigeon holed it, in other words. Gosh, aint I a stinker? What I wanted to convey was that fear of uncertainty was not the sole primary motivator, but I really don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to make any kind of convincing argument, but then, Mike never claimed that fear of uncertainty was the sole motivator of destructive behavior, just one that could lead to some horrible decisions. Of course, I then tried to make competition a simplified sole motivator, which as Gene pointed out is a logical fallacy of, well, laziness. I just filtered a few concepts out and used my preconception to speak about that of which I know nothing. Great article and comments, btw.
“The altruism of embracing uncertainty, the big uncertainties and the little ones, is IMO a luxury brought with very good times or very bad times.” (lotta) (emphasis added)
Whoa …. that’s deep and I’m being seriously sincere. I’m going to give that some thought because I sense there’s a whole lot of truth in those few simple words. Tomorrow is a very busy day but I will want to post an answer, questions, etc. to that statement so please, when you have the time later in the week, check back. Damn, all the good stuff shows up when I’m busy.
Gene,
I’m sure you’ve mentioned the book and I missed it. I’ll try and find it. (Maybe gbk will mail it to me
)
The first sentence of MM’s quote of John Dewey’s “Reconstruction in Philosophy” (1920) put me in mind of the oft-[mis]quoted sentence of George Santayana found in “Reason in Common Sense,” which is Volume I of his “Life or Reason” (1905-1906): “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The sentence is a hyperbolic summation of a paragraph dealing with the rather obvious importance of the accumulation and transfer of information (wisdom?) : “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.”
Leaving aside the arrogant slight concerning “savages,” obviously born of an ignorance of tribal means to transmit important information other than by pen and paper, I do think that his conclusion necessarily follows. I believe people are clever enough to screw up innumerable times without there being a repeat.
I think the larger problem with Santayana’s conclusion is his focus on ignorance as the cause of repeated bad outcomes (the “bad” being inferred from the word “condemned”). He didn’t consider bad motives.
Santayana focused on “cannot not,” an inability, rather than “do not,” an act of the will. Forgive my presumptuousness, but I have paraphrased Santayana’s conclusion to explain repeated bad policy decisons –
Those who do not remember the past are free to justify anything.
Correction: ” I do NOT think that his conclusion necessarily follows.”
For present purposes, Santayana’s more important statement may be: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.”
That accumulated knowledge/wisdom base was not all that easy to accumulate or transmit. Much of that accumulation and transmission is found not in books or other data banks, but in traditions, folk tales, oral histories especially among families, and, yes, even religions. These data bases exist even today because they stood the test of time — they got us to where we are. At a minimum, we survived. According to Santayana, we progressed.
It may be that, as a survival mechanism, we have developed a psychology to jealously guard these data bases and have an innate disdain for changing them and a distrust of relying on different or changed data bases.
That’s my first point, and in support I offer the following:
http://cbdr.cmu.edu/seminar/haidt.pdf
Second, we face not only an information overload causing uncertainty but also a choice overload which, because of the information overload, leaves us incapable of making a choice on a rational basis — everything gets reduced to our best guess which is never going to meet our expectation given all the choices.
For this second point, I offer:
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
I also offer thanks for a college student daughter who thinks enough of her ole man to share with him the foregoing paper and TED talk.
Lastly, it appears our brains interface and respond to the world conditions and events via narrative. It appears that the human animal likes a good story. A good story is one that, among other things, is a complete story.
The mind will fill in the blanks — either on its own, as a result of suggestion, or blithely accepting a lie. It’s just gotta make sense, it doesn’t have to be true.
Making sense means fitting in within what has gone before, what already is in place in the mind. That background information doesn’t have to be true, it’s just gotta make sense given the hearer’s psychology, experience, and education including OJT.
I have a feeling the narrative driven brain idea has a role in uncertainty avoidance, but I don’t have a handle on what that might be in a big picture sense. I think it explains the enduring nature of the accumulation and transmission of information/wisdom via “traditions, folk tales, oral histories especially among families, and, yes, even religions.”
I recommend Jonathan Gottschall’s book, “The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human” (2012).
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-storytelling-animal-jonathan-gottschall/1110866374?ean=9780547391403
Scroll down and click on “Read An Excerpt”
Finally (this time I mean it): words like “presumptuousness” — with that “uou” sequence of letters — gives me the heebie-jeebies. Just seems wrong.
Change is the only thing certain which is uncertain……..
Gene –
I received this email from my Dad yesterday. Thought you might appreciate.
“I received a phone call today. As I lifted the phone from it’s cradle I noticed the little square screen indicated that the caller’s number began with my area code. Might be someone I know. I thumbed the Talk button and the message started, “This is Sarah Palin.”
I sprained my thumb hitting the End button.”
Mike Spindell 1, May 19, 2012 at 5:53 pm
[quoting me upthread]
[Mike commenting on that quote]
==================================
1) [your statement]:
Gospel? I suppose you are saying, since I don’t know which research you are talking about time wise, that time is a function of scientific truth, i.e., if it isn’t old enough it isn’t
scientificgospel enough.Naturally, then, will come: “how long / old is good enough for
scientific truthgospel?”All I can say is that how long ago a discovery took place is not part of the scientific method. Knowing you, you probably meant consensus does take time, but that is not because time itself has truth that will leak into the spaces between the words of the paper explaining the research, rather, it is because scientific researchers are busy and can’t read all the papers and textbooks at once.
There is a massive amount of consensus on the amygdala, with respect to the most studied portions (the physical almond shaped twins), but as to the social neural network built around it by our experience, that has less consensus because there is much less research (fear is sexy, so it gets the big dog research money.)
For your special enjoyment, read about a solid American who detailed, in a diary, how his very bright conscious mind could not figure out what was going on (why he killed his wife and mother, both whom he loved dearly, or why he then killed indiscriminately for hours thereafter):
(100 Years of Psychotherapy – Take Cover!). His detailed diary indicated that he knew something was amiss, saw a shrink, but nothing surfaced.
After the cops killed him during his mass murder episode, his body was autopsied. It revealed a tumor near the amygdala, which was putting pressure on one of the twin amygdala entities.
In Lakoff’s book, “What Orwell Didn’t Know“, he points out that the bulk (~98%) of human cognition goes on in the subconscious, which is why Whitman could not figure out why “his brain was making him” involuntarily murder indiscriminately.
The propaganda / advertising industries are further cases in point, revealing that the amygdala is well known enough to be used for controlled reaction purposes.
2) [your statement]
I value good scientific research, but I would disagree with you supposition that religion has that much impact on scientific research. The military puts much more money into it, 99%, than religion does.
The term “intelligence” in grandpa’s dictionary is not the same as your definition, because it is defined there as a function of human consciousness at work in the brain (IQ). I happen to disagree with that because of all the papers and books I read concerning current research in microbiology.
3) [your statement]
Uh oh, I feel uncertainty jangling around … scuse me a sec … pop-fizz-oh what a relief it is.
4) [your statement]:
Uh oh, I see that as an attack on grandpa’s dictionary.
Cheers.
Orolee,
Thank you, as usual you have added much to this discussion.
“Much of that accumulation and transmission is found not in books or other data banks, but in traditions, folk tales, oral histories especially among families, and, yes, even religions. These data bases exist even today because they stood the test of time — they got us to where we are.”
I couldn’t agree with you more on this point. In our “intellectual-centric” mindset, the “thinkers” of humanity often discount this wisdom that has stood the test of time. In the Torah for instance the religionists cleave to the parts that reinforce their beliefs, while anti-religionists cleave to the improbabilities.
What’s missed is that in portraying imperfect beings as patriarchs and matriarchs, a commentary is being made on the human tradition in the sense of trying to convey the best way to live ones life. Looking at the all the traditions of humanity that have stood times’ test one can see them not as meta-physical constructs, but an attempt to give guidance on how to live. By
accepting them as either literal truths, or as improbable stories, we miss the attempt being made to transmit wisdom. We discount ancient people as “primitives”, yet they we far better at metaphor than we are today, it’s just that seekers of power have misused the metaphors in service of their own aims.
“It may be that, as a survival mechanism, we have developed a psychology to jealously guard these data bases and have an innate disdain for changing them and a distrust of relying on different or changed data bases.”
This is a point that I hadn’t thought of and seems a reasonable assumption to make. It complements my thoughts.
“we face not only an information overload causing uncertainty but also a choice overload which, because of the information overload, leaves us incapable of making a choice on a rational basis — everything gets reduced to our best guess which is never going to meet our expectation given all the choices.”
This whole comment is so much an expansion of the point I was trying to make that I wish that I had thought of it. You describe the “Fitting Game” which most humans play unconsciously and which I briefly alluded to in my post. I should have made some points clearer, but there are space considerations, thank you for your needed addition. As you aptly put it our consciousness tries to impose a coherent narrative to our lives. The arc of that narrative, composed of cumulative accretions, represents the “truth”
of our lives as we choose to see it. Quite often that “reality” is far from factual.
“All I can say is that how long ago a discovery took place is not part of the scientific method.”
Dredd,
No kidding? You miss my point and in truth my use of “gospel” was an unfortunate word choice, when I was meaning to connote that the studies of the amygdala have yielded data, but the interpretation of that data has not as yet proven itself convincing, to me at least. I don’t discount that they have observed differences in size and response to stimuli. I am not convinced though that it is understood what that data means other than some researchers assumptions. Much “brain” research is based on the premise that the brain is sort of like our organisms control center. I believe this assumption has not been largely proven, since there are other explanations for the data resulting from the experiments.
“There is a massive amount of consensus on the amygdala, with respect to the most studied portions (the physical almond shaped twins), but as to the social neural network built around it by our experience, that has less consensus because there is much less research (fear is sexy, so it gets the big dog research money.)”
Scientific consensus at any given time does not reality make. At one time there was scientific consensus that the Neanderthal was a beastly creature, who was an evolutionary failure when Cro-Magnon appeared. Much of that consensus was based on a kind of eugenic racism.
“For your special enjoyment, read about a solid American who detailed, in a diary, how his very bright conscious mind could not figure out what was going on (why he killed his wife and mother, both whom he loved dearly, or why he then killed indiscriminately for hours thereafter)”
This gives me no enjoyment at all since in my life I twice experienced psychotic fugues while tripping on LSD, the last time in 1980 remains vivid to this day. Beyond that, when I underwent my heart transplant surgery one of the medications used commonly induces psychosis. After coming out of anesthesia I was in a paranoid psychotic state for two days and believed that the medical staff that had just saved my life, were trying to kill me. My condition scared hell out of my family and the morphine I was being given only made the problem worse. When I stopped the morphine the psychosis went away, but the feeling of dread took time to wear off. A month later I had complications with my lungs that put me into another semi-psychotic state due to lack of oxygenation and it was only a life-saving lung operation that brought me back. I know first hand the effects of psychosis, a knowledge one can’t understand from reading alone.
“It revealed a tumor near the amygdala, which was putting pressure on one of the twin amygdala entities.”
Interesting, but anecdotal. It describes presumed cause and effect without ruling out other possibilities.
“In Lakoff’s book, “What Orwell Didn’t Know“, he points out that the bulk (~98%) of human cognition goes on in the subconscious, which is why Whitman could not figure out why “his brain was making him” involuntarily murder indiscriminately.”
“The propaganda / advertising industries are further cases in point, revealing that the amygdala is well known enough to be used for controlled reaction purposes.”
Still quite theoretical based o the assumptions of the observer. What if the set of assumptions used to interpret the data is flawed? I’m not saying it is, but then again as you alluded in your comment, today’s scientific establishment has become a money-driven proposition, with grants going to those who adhere more strictly to the research deemed appropriate.
“I value good scientific research, but I would disagree with you supposition that religion has that much impact on scientific research. The military puts much more money into it, 99%, than religion does.”
Again you miss my point, though again it could be my lack of clarity. I wasn’t saying that organized religion impacts scientific research. I was saying that the “mind-body split” adopted for doctrinaire reasons by Christianity about 600 years ago, has permeated people’s thinking by assuming that the brain acts as the body’s controller. The corollary is that our “feelings” represent the baser functions of ourselves. In the Holistic approach, we’re one organism and our intelligence/reason is a function of the whole, not just the brain.
“The term “intelligence” in grandpa’s dictionary is not the same as your definition, because it is defined there as a function of human consciousness at work in the brain (IQ). I happen to disagree with that because of all the papers and books I read concerning current research in microbiology.”
I accept neither the dictionary definition for reasons stated above, nor yours because I don’t think there is an abundance of evidence that prove its assumptions. While I’m a firm believer in both Scientific Study and in the Scientific Method, I think that like much in human endeavor its practice is far from the pristine search for truth it is made out to be.
Mike Spindell 1, May 20, 2012 at 11:47 am
…
Much “brain” research is based on the premise that the brain is sort of like our organisms control center. I believe this assumption has not been largely proven, since there are other explanations for the data resulting from the experiments.
=========================
Fine.
But not the research I read, understand, and quote.
The only guy that you said understands your post argues that human consciousness is the creator of science and religion, i.e. that both science and religion originated in the human consciousness, an entity that developed in “the last two seconds” in terms of evolutionary time.
Talk about brain central.
I have said the “primitive”, meaning “earliest”, forms of science and religion developed well before the human species evolved.
I suppose you can understand my consternation of your statement that only the Badge Kop can grasp your post exactly, while the rest of us are only “not exactly.”
My writings point out that 2% of cognition is conscious, 98% is subconscious, that ALL data from senses goes FIRST to the amygdala, where it is “processed and packaged” then sent to the conscious portion of our cognition.
You confuse “cognition” with “brain” when you look at research, then flip flop back to certainty vs uncertainty as some form of wash of the mystery.
That does not work for me.
I don’t like fuzzy math, fuzzy logic, or fuzzy science, but I do like fuzzy cats and dogs.
Mike Spindell 1, May 20, 2012 at 11:47 am
…
Scientific consensus at any given time does not reality make.
=============================
Neither does bullshit.
Neither does clinging to Luddite scientists like bdaman did.
You quoted a whole bunch of Darwinistic bullshit in this post, which I called out.
You have not yet commented on that Darwinism.
Mike Spindell 1, May 20, 2012 at 11:47 am
…
“It revealed a tumor near the amygdala, which was putting pressure on one of the twin amygdala entities.”
Interesting, but anecdotal. It describes presumed cause and effect without ruling out other possibilities.
============================
That tumor was the cause of the behavior, according to science.
Dredd,
Re-read what I said about Gene’s understanding, I think you got it wrong. As far as his discussing your self-promotion, you and I both know that is true. However, many times you write good stuff on your blog and you know I’ve complemented you in the past. Also it is your right here to self-promote, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be pointed out. As for our differing viewpoints on the “brain study” issue that’s just the way it is. Neither of us is going to convince the other of our positions. Which in the end is a sort of an illustrative commentary on the points I made in this blog.
Mike Spindell 1, May 20, 2012 at 11:47 am
…
“In Lakoff’s book, “What Orwell Didn’t Know“, he points out that the bulk (~98%) of human cognition goes on in the subconscious, which is why Whitman could not figure out why “his brain was making him” involuntarily murder indiscriminately.”
“The propaganda / advertising industries are further cases in point, revealing that the amygdala is well known enough to be used for controlled reaction purposes.”
Still quite theoretical based o the assumptions of the observer. What if the set of assumptions used to interpret the data is flawed? I’m not saying it is, but then again as you alluded in your comment, today’s scientific establishment has become a money-driven proposition, with grants going to those who adhere more strictly to the research deemed appropriate.
======================================
The American public has been controlled through the amygdala since social Darwinism, near the turn of the century.
Adam Smith, quoted by Chomsky, figured that out long ago:
(The Deceit Business). The chief American propaganda master, who wrote the book “Propaganda”, who was a nephew and follower of Freud, worked for the government to sell WW I through amygdala manipulating techniques.
This mass propaganda shit is a century old:
(A Closer Look At MOMCOM’s DNA). That makes it “gospel” doesn’t it?
“I don’t like fuzzy math, fuzzy logic, or fuzzy science, but I do like fuzzy cats and dogs.”
“Neither does bullshit.
Neither does clinging to Luddite scientists like bdaman did.
You quoted a whole bunch of Darwinistic bullshit in this post, which I called out.
You have not yet commented on that Darwinism.”
Dredd,
First of all I’m a fuzzy kind of guy. Show me anywhere in my writings here where I rely on someone’s opinion to make a point, I don’t make points with other’s opinions. I consider myself a well-read “synthesist”, in that my opinions and writing reflect a synthesis of the experiences/knowledge I’ve gained without respect to particular sources. My ideas are generally my own, though I don’t make any great claims of originality.
Comparing me to Bdaman was a low blow because it’s is obvious that he is merely propagandizing for his team ad not really a Luddite. As far as to whether or not I’m spreading “bullshit” I would leave that to the eyes of the beholder.
Now while I did mention evolution in my post it was broadly done, without specificity about evolutionary theory. I support the general concept of evolution, but I’m well aware that there are some inconsistencies in the theory and gaps that are yet to be bridged. As for “Darwinism” it seems to me that while Darwin was given credit for “evolutionary theory” that occurred about 150 years ago and much refinement has gone on since. Evolution has shall we say evolved since Darwin. Now I don’t claim any scientific background, though I did get “B’s” on my High School NYS Regents Exams in both Chemistry and Biology. Since due to my general bad behavior in school and failure to do homework I was failing both coming into the tests, I considered those tests victories for my scientific “bono fides” and my teachers considered it annoyingly astonishing.
Dredd you really should understand by now that I essentially write essays that express my own beliefs. Yes there are some blogs that I extensively research, but in general, most are unabashedly my own viewpoint, which the reader is free to accept, reject and/or build upon as is their wont.
“The only guy that you said understands your post argues that human consciousness is the creator of science and religion, i.e. that both science and religion originated in the human consciousness, an entity that developed in ‘the last two seconds’ in terms of evolutionary time.”
Straw man.
I argue that science and religion are social constructs because that is what they are by definition. Science is the accumulated and codified knowledge of how the world works gathered by the observation based and experimentally verifiable framework of the scientific method. Religion is a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices gathered by tradition in furtherance of a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith as a moral/ethical model for living one’s life in society. They are systems created by human minds; higher order intelligence expressed in complex life. As far as we know and barring the discovery of intelligent alien life, we are the only species to have either of these practices. Other primates use tools. Humans use tools. It does not follow that chimps practice science. They don’t have sufficient cognitive capacity to understand the scientific method let alone the language skills required from preserving and transmitting complex ideas over time let alone in contemporaneous communication. Their tool use is primitive as are their social organization and language – all of which are required with a degree of complexity to both understand and practice science. A dog can have altruistic behavior. A human can have altruistic behavior. Assuming that all religions are based in altruism (which some are not, see Objectivism for a prime example), it does not follow that dogs practice religion. Dogs social order is too simple to necessitate it and they are not intelligent enough to raise the basic questions required to develop a religion based upon altruism or any other behavior.
Consider for example dolphins – the non-primate species most likely to posses some kind of higher intelligence assuming we can ever breach the language barrier. They are the closest thing to an intelligent alien species we have on Earth. We know they have a fairly complex social order and their communication among themselves is fairly complex. They may be an intelligence comparable to human but of an entirely different order. However, it is highly improbable that they have science. They are curious and intelligent, but they are not sophisticated tool users. Their ability to experiment (i.e. interrogate the nature of reality) is practically nil. They display altruism in the context of a complex social order. They might have some form of religion although it would be in a form considered primitive in our species – an oral tradition.
Science and religion both originated in the human consciousness . . . as far as we know.
I never said that they were the sole dominion of humanity and in fact I’ve stipulated the possibility of alien intelligences having their own forms of science and religion. None of which changes that bacteria have neither. Bacteria are simple life. They don’t have language and they don’t have culture (pardon the pun) because they don’t have simple society/civilization let alone complex and lack sophisticated tool use. These other systems are required to both practice science and religion by definition. Your assertion that microbes practice science and/or religion – not to put too fine a point on it – is completely and utterly ridiculous and the product of wishful thinking that has more to do with science fiction than science.
Also, you argue the fallacy of special pleading. That science and religion resulted in a fairly recent development in life on Earth and that you raise that as an exception to my argument contradicts your assertion that time isn’t a condition of scientific truth. That science and religion are recent developments in life on Earth is simply the fact of the matter no matter how much you wish to contort and distort the definitions of the words to justify your worship of microbial life. And worship is the right word. You seek to find order that explains the world better where there is no order. You seek certainty in place where there is none – a replacement for robe of religion garbed poorly in the lab coat of science.
You say you understand what you read, but the evidence points to a partial or flawed understanding at best based upon the erroneous conclusions of your pet theory. You are almost a good thinker, but not quite. Run along now before you misrepresent someone else’s words again. I’m sure George is missing you out at the Skywalker Ranch.
Dredd,
By the way I’ve always felt about Chomsky that he is a pompous, overrated ass, living on his memories of the Movement in the 60′s, without recognizing his own culpability in things turning out so badly. Much of what Chomsky breathlessly reveals as his creative insights are rather obvious to those who study history.
“who was a nephew and follower of Freud, worked for the government to sell WW I through amygdala manipulating techniques.”
You again confuse effect and cause. Propaganda is actually millenias old and its usage well understood since the dawn of civilization. That it is the result of manipulation of the amygdala is still unproven theory in my estimation, despite the fact you are convinced it is. Now I don’t know what your training or profession is, so perhaps you have scientific credentials. I don’t have, nor have ever aspired to those credentials although I find science fascinating. This is why I never partake in any but the most simple scientific arguments because I don’t claim expertise.
Now as far as what I think about the general integrity of science, I do believe that generally there is little more integrity among scientists, than that exhibited by people in other fields. I had a close friend in the 70′s who returned to school for a Doctorate in Chemistry and later became quite successful in the field of cancer research. One night when all of us were high I asked him why he chose cancer research and the particular specialty he was interested in? My question was one of trying to understand why he had personally dedicated himself to this field. He told me with utter seriousness that he did it because that was where he could have the easiest life and earn very good money. He then said he chose his area of specialization because there would be little competition for grant money. It told me a lot about his dedication to the growth of knowledge and also pointed out that scientists are merely humans too.
“By the way I’ve always felt about Chomsky that he is a pompous, overrated ass, living on his memories of the Movement in the 60′s, without recognizing his own culpability in things turning out so badly. Much of what Chomsky breathlessly reveals as his creative insights are rather obvious to those who study history.”
Yep.
At the Library of Science Conference on the “Decade of the Brain,” it seemed that all the presentations concentrated on the idea that the brain was the HQ for everything, and I think we like that feeling, and I don’t know why we like it. It almost seems to have a religious tint.
Irv Dardik, who was formerly a cardiologist who consulted to the US Olympic Team, came up with quite a different approach to things (only involving physiological health, not mental health, of course) with his work on exercise and wave technology. Apparently he believes (something like) that the heart, and its rhythms and rhythmical variations, can be more the bodymind regulator (more the “body/mind governmental regulation system”) than the brain. This would mean, perhaps, that heart (SUPPLY) has as much to do with how we move through life as brain (DIRECTION).
Maternal (feed) as much as paternal (guide)?
I know I’m moving through psycholinguistic and cerebral space at will and without hard data here, but it’s fun.
My son did Irv Dardik’s “cycles exercise program” for probably two, three years after a bad diagnosis in 2005. He got much better! No drugs, no surgery! He said that, as a long-term matter, he was able to “heal” from everything better after that; he said “I can even let go of anger more easily” after that. I don’t know any way to THINK myself into an easier letting go of anger, so I really think there may be something there. It’s a little oddball, but so are lots of things that have a chance of working.
What got me onto this OT? OH, yeah, the amygdala. (They’re apparently shaped like almonds.)
Mike Spindell 1, May 20, 2012 at 12:53 pm
“I don’t like fuzzy math, fuzzy logic, or fuzzy science, but I do like fuzzy cats and dogs.”
“Neither does bullshit.
Neither does clinging to Luddite scientists like bdaman did.
You quoted a whole bunch of Darwinistic bullshit in this post, which I called out.
You have not yet commented on that Darwinism.”
Dredd,
First of all I’m a fuzzy kind of guy. Show me anywhere in my writings here where I rely on someone’s opinion to make a point, I don’t make points with other’s opinions. I consider myself a well-read “synthesist”, in that my opinions and writing reflect a synthesis of the experiences/knowledge I’ve gained without respect to particular sources. My ideas are generally my own, though I don’t make any great claims of originality.
====================================
Yeah, well that is the essence of The Failure of Applied American Epistemology.
We all have to depend on someone else to tell us what truth is:
(The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?). There are some here among us on this blog who practice macho science, who have a copy of the holy grail, a.k.a. grandpa’s dictionary, handed down from Dick Tracy, the head dick of the old daze.
Whatever, I have no whores in that race.
Malisha 1, May 20, 2012 at 1:30 pm
At the Library of Science Conference on the “Decade of the Brain,” it seemed that all the presentations concentrated on the idea that the brain was the HQ for everything, and I think we like that feeling, and I don’t know why we like it. It almost seems to have a religious tint.
============================
Malish, I hope you did not forget to comment to them that some of us here on this blog believe that a lot of cognition comes from the anal cavity.
Malisha, I think it’s the brain telling us that it is the HQ for everything. See Gene’s article on propaganda. : )
Mike Spindell:
excellent article. Very thought provoking.
The only certainty in life is death. The only thing people have to do is die.
“The only certainty in life is death.”
Bron,
Thank you for the kid words.
As for certainty though, what about paying taxes?
“ki(n)d words”. The wayward “n” on my laptop drives me crazy.
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