tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-244822462024-03-07T18:05:22.779-08:00Stray IdeasThis is a group of stray ideas. Click on the number of comments indicator under a post to make your comment.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-18314774147688424262011-09-05T11:26:00.000-07:002013-02-27T16:16:20.887-08:00Consciousness Before Birth and After Death<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAzdZ1gI56YsymXrIH-4Cf27-tkZg-D7BYuYcfP7UgOlG7F2ZgD2P9fgcuEY-DnAgSs1MaYByytJPmvL_TkaWahU3jeF_LcI7n_Su0dZkGb78kEZw_r1rBJc9GXZh97exYio9r/s1600/coffin.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648944339376414722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAzdZ1gI56YsymXrIH-4Cf27-tkZg-D7BYuYcfP7UgOlG7F2ZgD2P9fgcuEY-DnAgSs1MaYByytJPmvL_TkaWahU3jeF_LcI7n_Su0dZkGb78kEZw_r1rBJc9GXZh97exYio9r/s320/coffin.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 196px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 257px;" /></a>What is the difference, to consciousness, between being dead and being not yet born, or more exactly, being not yet even conceived? Are they equivalent states of consciousness?<br />
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After you die, your individual consciousness ceases to exist. Religion generally denies this, but that is wishful thinking. The main purpose of religion, after all, is to deny death. For believers, who are alive, not dead, this is a comforting, though delusional idea that has no basis in evidence or logic.<br />
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So let us agree, for purpose of this essay, that individual consciousness ceases to exist when, or sometime very soon after, all the systems of the physical body cease to function.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y5LTV6qq2nhGxvqHoVuMZN84Nto6C6lXbFUEg9I47cLBs1Wy7G94tTgtrwjh5unr4_ddZ8m_11Krj6jQFRcY8jzy15R6S0I4xEOted8heVB264-P2MqvVYpnSc3YDAU-RTRF/s1600/embryo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648944510671387314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y5LTV6qq2nhGxvqHoVuMZN84Nto6C6lXbFUEg9I47cLBs1Wy7G94tTgtrwjh5unr4_ddZ8m_11Krj6jQFRcY8jzy15R6S0I4xEOted8heVB264-P2MqvVYpnSc3YDAU-RTRF/s320/embryo.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 165px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 202px;" /></a>Now, how is that different in principle, to an individual’s state of consciousness prior to being conceived? In that condition (or non-condition), there is no physical body to define the boundary of an individual, and with no body, no individual consciousness. Functionally then, being unborn (unconceived) is equivalent to being dead. In both cases there is no individual consciousness because the functioning, individual embodiment to support it does not exist. Individual consciousness depends on individual embodiment – which is not to say that consciousness is caused by embodiment; there is no evidence for that. There is simply a dependency, of an unknown kind, between embodiment and consciousness.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFHn9cONTK4OgLzH9iidCpKJDVwAZGOrKc36h-MqQkBx2UGfo7ycFPhz8Qfc-MC3tkdxmbZul7ZJKbIT-zCi3gsPOdjMIVC6W0nkb19FZ4twdtXMrSQvb2IvQYsnLdLxrOM-Sg/s1600/map.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648944882174499122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFHn9cONTK4OgLzH9iidCpKJDVwAZGOrKc36h-MqQkBx2UGfo7ycFPhz8Qfc-MC3tkdxmbZul7ZJKbIT-zCi3gsPOdjMIVC6W0nkb19FZ4twdtXMrSQvb2IvQYsnLdLxrOM-Sg/s320/map.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 133px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 172px;" /></a>It is only during a brief segment of less than 100 years, while we have a functioning body, that we have a functioning individual consciousness. Prior to the beginning of my tiny moment of individualism, the world extended backward in time beyond history and took place entirely without my presence (difficult though that is to imagine). And after my flicker of time is over, the world will continue on, in some form or other, without me (difficult though that is to imagine). Beyond the boundaries of my particular individual life, my consciousness simply does not exist in the universe. Why then, do we so carefully distinguish between being dead, and being not yet born?<br />
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An easy, and wrong, answer, is that the unborn are full of “potential” while the dead are not. This is a linguistic confusion, for “the unborn” do not exist. What the expression means is that some hypothetical individual who might be conceived and born at a future date, would have the potential to have experience, and to cause things to happen in the world. But that is a fact about someone who hypothetically will be alive, not an entity actually unconceived and unborn at this time. That entity does not literally exist yet. Something that does not exist has no potential for anything.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDotJdz1v8JP5wS3XTqzqJi8VduuGtk19Dq7x3ifvqtUAbWYf2nUSzOp_fUrIxf8wt2EtKTtQZkN2zhbKRhDHY1InTMh2hcVr0cDSnFN74NfAfsbLHFps_chH9hFqHGK9yq8O/s1600/Rio.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648950371876364226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDotJdz1v8JP5wS3XTqzqJi8VduuGtk19Dq7x3ifvqtUAbWYf2nUSzOp_fUrIxf8wt2EtKTtQZkN2zhbKRhDHY1InTMh2hcVr0cDSnFN74NfAfsbLHFps_chH9hFqHGK9yq8O/s320/Rio.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 125px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 167px;" /></a>A person might take a God’s-eye view of human life and declare from that omniscient mountaintop that new individuals will be born, and when they are, will have “potential” for life whereas the dead never will again (assuming that dead is forever). But there is no God’s-eye view. We are humans, not gods, and we only have a human point of view, which is not omniscient. To take a God’s eye view is either imagination or self-delusion. If you’re going to pretend you have a God’s eye view of life and death, you might as well imagine reincarnation, or zombies and vampires if you like, because it is unconstrained fabrication anyway.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG0YN2RxxnhXOWKvdk24vlFZpOFzn7Jthr0_Y0ROmz3MgaLTDWGPgYMQkaCTT91YKsuGXiL_a-UHlc_LwztwlxKAShwXgUls2zjudNbNoslktu1tpemkYhbPH33FFC2HPHDKDc/s1600/human+bones.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648952618056940818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG0YN2RxxnhXOWKvdk24vlFZpOFzn7Jthr0_Y0ROmz3MgaLTDWGPgYMQkaCTT91YKsuGXiL_a-UHlc_LwztwlxKAShwXgUls2zjudNbNoslktu1tpemkYhbPH33FFC2HPHDKDc/s320/human+bones.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 151px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 228px;" /></a>From actual human, not presumptive divine, knowledge, we can again only conclude that there is no functional difference between the state of (non-) consciousness prior to conception and after death. That conclusion is an inference based on evidence available to living humans.<br />
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However, there is a psychological difference that matters to living humans. I have memory of personal experience that seems to extend backward in time before my birth. This is possible through the magic of history. By contrast, except for religious stories, I do not imagine any personal experience beyond my death, since, unlike for history, there is no human evidence that any experience continues beyond death.<br />
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Of the uncountable billions and billions of people who have died on this planet, and among the millions who die every day, not a single person has ever “come back” to the living and reported any experience beyond death, or even communicated with us “from the other side” about what postmortem experience is like. In this assertion, I rule out fictional stories, religious fabrications, fraudulent reports, and tales from the mentally abnormal. By comparison, with history, we have written records, fossils, geology, astronomy, genetics and so forth, which give us verifiable, scientific evidence of what happened or probably happened before my individual experience began.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqY5YT8QVzmf1eVPsR30a7Bi-5EDMPKnovxpzEgC2GkcFQKQYwtjV6OHiA3iuyo86PMsq3SVZ7CUJPuwRsSu5ZtdNuQIILqWzwAerbHDk4axIkQk-nw9V7BZ9NtCUGD4E2_RFW/s1600/WWII.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648950698030846786" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqY5YT8QVzmf1eVPsR30a7Bi-5EDMPKnovxpzEgC2GkcFQKQYwtjV6OHiA3iuyo86PMsq3SVZ7CUJPuwRsSu5ZtdNuQIILqWzwAerbHDk4axIkQk-nw9V7BZ9NtCUGD4E2_RFW/s320/WWII.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 182px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 301px;" /></a>World War II ended before I was born, which seems odd to me, because I feel like I remember it, but that’s because of having studied history. My father fought in WWII and he actually remembers it (or would, if he were not dead). But what would he remember? He would remember his naval experience, his buddies, the situations he was in. He would not remember the entire war, though, because nobody could, because nobody experienced the entire war. People can only literally remember their own experience, not somebody else’s. And yet, after a lifetime of reading about the war, and watching uncountable movies and newsreels covering all aspects of it, I feel I have a personal memory of it, although that is not literally possible because I wasn’t yet born when the war ended. Still, that quasi-memory, a function of internalized history, extends my memory of collective human experience back in time beyond the moment of my conception.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgR34NxwT5TdtD_4Sdu4BZWVc_qG1AKrVGjNrnG1TGrnaG91IURBWM12h_yggWFOJ0xPttNpu-Kbt-AkE2oURolayABqf2jqOLqAz7hxfwDI9FvqG-n2FHmvKOYpj7fwBpJUZT/s1600/Tut.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648951068938862994" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgR34NxwT5TdtD_4Sdu4BZWVc_qG1AKrVGjNrnG1TGrnaG91IURBWM12h_yggWFOJ0xPttNpu-Kbt-AkE2oURolayABqf2jqOLqAz7hxfwDI9FvqG-n2FHmvKOYpj7fwBpJUZT/s320/Tut.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 201px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 146px;" /></a>There is a complementary, if not parallel, kind of quasi-experience after death. After a person dies, their memory continues in the collective experience of those who knew that person. In cultures that emphasize ancestor worship, this mnemonic persistence can last quite a long time. Eventually, and inevitably, it fades from the collective memory. Even if a family has an extensive, documented genealogy, we can be confident there is little, if any, collective memory of individuals who lived thousands of years ago, or who lived before history. Some individuals who are deemed noteworthy by a cultural tradition may be remembered less intimately for much longer than average. We collectively remember Albert Einstein, Thomas Aquinas, Jesus Christ, Socrates, and a collection of Egyptian Pharaohs. As more time elapses since a person’s death, the less detailed is the historical record of them and the dimmer the collective memory.<br />
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Nevertheless, there is a sense in which an individual’s experience persists beyond death in the collective consciousness of the community in which that individual lived. The dead individual has no personal consciousness or memory, but as long as the community persists, there is yet a persistent psychological trace of that individual’s experience.<br />
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To the extent that an individual, while living, defines himself or herself as a member of that community, psychologically constituted of it, then the individual can anticipate being remembered in the collective consciousness after death. That is, in a sense, another form of quasi-memory, an imagined future memory in the minds of the community. That is why some people are so extremely motivated to “leave a mark,” “make a difference,” “leave a legacy,” or otherwise make a noteworthy impression on their community so that their imagined, future, collective memory will persist longer than average.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3-lDHtPVECChZCPePAjA32Z18qluW5iCbYeW-fVmMLrbLJMVsjrLHjbGeGduK_kzwJ09IpEnsy-4l_gSNyP2OY47W8LTBES6S4P87z80Hpy1622aC_BUUrYBnojF6WvI70Abs/s1600/Arlington.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648951541128291538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3-lDHtPVECChZCPePAjA32Z18qluW5iCbYeW-fVmMLrbLJMVsjrLHjbGeGduK_kzwJ09IpEnsy-4l_gSNyP2OY47W8LTBES6S4P87z80Hpy1622aC_BUUrYBnojF6WvI70Abs/s320/Arlington.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 149px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 199px;" /></a>The quasi-memory after death is actually an imagination of the community’s future rememberance, not a literal individual postmortem memory, but it can be conceived as a hybrid form of postmortem consciousness. In comparison, the quasi-memory of experience before birth feels like an individual form of consciousness, but it is derived from the collective experience of historians, scientists, and the like, and so is also a hybrid of personal and collective consciousness. The two kinds of hybrid quasi-experience have different qualitative feels.<br />
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Thus, there is, after all, a difference in consciousness between being dead and not yet having been conceived. While there are hybrid forms of quasi-personal consciousness before birth and after death, they are strangely different, and complementary rather than parallel or equivalent.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-46458266163216441422012-04-20T10:59:00.014-07:002013-02-27T09:29:30.794-08:00Five Kinds of God<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvApqmsGMoRDmWlNcqPV-bT8FQWP_yhBO8rQas8x5DbQCF_lVkVHCB3A1DHBRH8iSrzjH5C2VDj4Bjp1AY58JttiZXOfer98ThmOxcVCxvbb8WRldAaLdWk4k9zPKiMI2Af5f/s1600/In+a+Bar.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733545831517920898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvApqmsGMoRDmWlNcqPV-bT8FQWP_yhBO8rQas8x5DbQCF_lVkVHCB3A1DHBRH8iSrzjH5C2VDj4Bjp1AY58JttiZXOfer98ThmOxcVCxvbb8WRldAaLdWk4k9zPKiMI2Af5f/s320/In+a+Bar.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 157px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 210px;" /></a>I was in a bar, having a beer with some friends, and the conversation turned to the existence of God. Only one person of eight claimed to be a believer. Most were dismissive, name-calling atheists, along with with a few rational, unmoved skeptics.<br />
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For myself, before jumping in, I wanted to know what we were talking about. Did we have a working definition of God? The atheists insisted we were talking about a delusion, a mental disorder of psychiatric proportions. They cited books by Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchins, among others. There was no possible definition of God, they said, unless we wanted to talk abnormal psychology.<br />
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I suggested we stipulate the Biblical God of the Old Testament as a working definition, for the sake of discussion. The atheists would not agree. One woman with a charming foreign accent insisted that we would just be discussing “a fairy in the tooth.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1Jd90fc9WSZdzTFh4BeDCsRR8zqpphBJMEHsmXtI3foaxifUbInQa0KNl1wuIURwA5NLf9UJlOW1syCOHiWFGIjpRf7wKq98G9NDNKaAG4nsKRtRJYDBNrggoQNMguXckJGS/s1600/thomas1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733546294231365858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1Jd90fc9WSZdzTFh4BeDCsRR8zqpphBJMEHsmXtI3foaxifUbInQa0KNl1wuIURwA5NLf9UJlOW1syCOHiWFGIjpRf7wKq98G9NDNKaAG4nsKRtRJYDBNrggoQNMguXckJGS/s320/thomas1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 195px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 143px;" /></a>What about Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs of the existence of God, someone suggested, the only person in the group with any formal training in theology? Even the atheists were familiar with these famous arguments (not really “proofs”) from 13th century Europe. “All disproven, every one of them,” the atheists insisted, and that settled it.<br />
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So the discussion went nowhere; never got started really. When students ask me if I believe in God, my standard answer is, “You tell me what God is, and I’ll tell you if I believe in that.” So after my frustrating discussion at the bar, I decided to formulate a list of definitions of “God,” and see which ones, if any, I could justify.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Five Kinds of God: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUcZokaX5JI_d40b0V-KaMVWUrC1iSz-PM8GWbb09HDv_fXWvlI9Nqd2EbrB7G88RS3yq5ECGpwJsP3WW15a6tHz1BZQyqU7y8gpZpv8EK3A766277rWOigL42NMxxv8DwSiYf/s1600/god-creator.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733546070264619618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUcZokaX5JI_d40b0V-KaMVWUrC1iSz-PM8GWbb09HDv_fXWvlI9Nqd2EbrB7G88RS3yq5ECGpwJsP3WW15a6tHz1BZQyqU7y8gpZpv8EK3A766277rWOigL42NMxxv8DwSiYf/s320/god-creator.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 195px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 244px;" /></a>1. A readily available definition of God is the anthropomorphic, monotheistic God of the Old Testament and the Koran, a blend of many ancient pagan gods. This God is superhuman and supernatural, in other words, divine and not of this earthly world. It is the creator of all things, the bringer of death, the perfection of Good and The Righteous, and the ultimate judge of each person’s merit. This God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (present everywhere). It is personal, hears prayers, responds to them (sometimes), directs individual lives, dispenses ultimate reward and punishment, and can intervene into personal, social, and natural events, either on request, or arbitrarily. This God also requires a great deal of praise and worship, and in return, might grant a strange kind of partial immortality.<br />
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A variation on this theme is the God of the Christian New testament, Jesus, a God cloaked in flesh for better communication with humans, but basically a messenger for the Old Testament God.<br />
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Do I believe in those Gods, or anything like them? Definitely not. I think the monotheistic God of Christianity and Islam is at best, crusty tradition, at worst, a projection of monumental human egocentricism. When we were children, each of us was, for a while, the unquestioned center of the universe. A lot of people never get past that. As adults they project and reify a paternal figure or tribal leader that will continue their infantilization. I think Freud nailed that analysis.<br />
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I don’t believe there is any need for such a God, except among those people who cling to childish egocentricism, believing that a benevolent, all-powerful parent still watches over them and assures them that everything is all right. That’s why this kind of God persists in so many cultures: it indulges a real human need. But taken at face value as a deity, it is too incoherent to be believed, or even understood, as anything but a human projection, and there is no evidence or non-circular reason to justify it otherwise.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQqvP9rEoTrtBNG9zgDkpys6mHJ66FDqenainFpZrPnmSmTjW-uHkRD9cXMOshyphenhyphenXDYRw04dalBabxqhxcWj_4SPrfzXSxmWoLuegiXHc9JswVGfCs6GSqWrwWTtdxcGd6dL-G/s1600/Compassion.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733546455261407634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQqvP9rEoTrtBNG9zgDkpys6mHJ66FDqenainFpZrPnmSmTjW-uHkRD9cXMOshyphenhyphenXDYRw04dalBabxqhxcWj_4SPrfzXSxmWoLuegiXHc9JswVGfCs6GSqWrwWTtdxcGd6dL-G/s320/Compassion.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 146px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 187px;" /></a>2. An alternative is a social god, what Anthony Freeman called “God In Us” (Imprint Academic, 2001). According to Freeman, God is not "out there," in heaven, outside of history, distant, aloof, and silent. No, God is a force within human beings, alive and present to us. What kind of a force is it? Freeman is vague on that. It is whatever is the source of our highest values. What are those? The usual suspects: goodness, truth, justice, beauty, compassion and so on.<br />
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This approach has the advantage of dispensing with the trappings of churches, priests, idols, sacrifices, rituals, superstition, hierarchy, paternalism, and all the murky mumbo-jumbo that goes with traditional religion, while retaining the best of human values. Freeman's God is warm and fuzzy, but on the down side, it’s hard to say what makes a set of values into a kind of “God.” All values are culturally-agreed-upon principles. No educated person would propose that there are universal, cross-cultural, non-historical, transpersonal, absolute values. Would they? What would be the evidence?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMjrVx1wfW2L5kukH9_PEFh5Plk8EdWBUolZ5cwICFiK79KaUq_rmxn_VbmMD-zliO86RWtEPm_W8nKP3Y2BUGTFeFurfwsHviAvstZiUFO2oR0gbfKMMVSLLQp7ZOncFybCw/s1600/I+and+Thou.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733545933316484962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMjrVx1wfW2L5kukH9_PEFh5Plk8EdWBUolZ5cwICFiK79KaUq_rmxn_VbmMD-zliO86RWtEPm_W8nKP3Y2BUGTFeFurfwsHviAvstZiUFO2oR0gbfKMMVSLLQp7ZOncFybCw/s320/I+and+Thou.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 207px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 207px;" /></a>A related idea of God, quite a bit more convincing, in my opinion, arises from the psychology of deep intersubjectivity, articulated by philosophers and theologians such as Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber. According to this idea, when you encounter another person honestly and authentically, not defensively, not egocentrically, but in the other person’s space, you find yourself facing something holy. You feel love, humility, and a sense of being in a sacred presence. This is not a personal divinity, but an inter-personal divinity. It’s not in you, but in us. The immanence of the other’s subjectivity defines that spiritual encounter. Meeting someone like that is what Buber called an I-Thou relationship, to distinguish it from the more mundane I-You relationship. Your response to the presence of that spirit defines ethics and morality in the rest of life.<br />
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Do I believe in that kind of God? Yes. It is attractive because while it is a transpersonal spiritual experience, larger than the individual, it is not supernatural, because it is a naturally occurring phenomenon in human experience. It is a well-acknowledged and documented experience among psychotherapists and other counselors, and ordinary people with a honed intersubjective sensitivity.<br />
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On the down side, encountering intersubjective holiness is not an everyday occurrence, at least not for me. For someone not susceptible to deep intersubjectivity, it is basically an inaccessible kind of spirituality. And I must admit, it is a “thin” God as far as deities go. In other words, it does not provide for worship, prayers, burning bushes, everlasting life, or any of the other alleged benefits attributed to a more traditional god. But it does exist, it is transpersonal and holy, and its existence can be verified on demand, empirically, not scientifically, but observationally, by direct personal experience. I believe it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUnV0A7JclrnVrWwGBuZBlNtGqmHYJSvkXpUoH2A8KQXrg6c_dyK9Sq9-lnx1D0NargvcfFb2W06aadu8grWBCTmTG26qVSw7aHoCujVTyl-zhCn4tqpuh5jbBaFikDXvOCoG4/s1600/brain.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733544523855107746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUnV0A7JclrnVrWwGBuZBlNtGqmHYJSvkXpUoH2A8KQXrg6c_dyK9Sq9-lnx1D0NargvcfFb2W06aadu8grWBCTmTG26qVSw7aHoCujVTyl-zhCn4tqpuh5jbBaFikDXvOCoG4/s320/brain.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 204px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 204px;" /></a>3. A third kind of God is a transcendent spiritual experience that some scientists attribute to specialized activity in certain parts of the brain, but which other people attribute to God. Psychotic patients hear God’s voice all the time, talk to God, and get along in jolly conversations with the Big Guy. But they’re crazy, right?<br />
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Social science and medical research reveal that most ordinary (non-crazy) people have had auditory hallucinations at least once or twice in their life (“Visions for All,” Science News, April 7, 2012, 22-25). These are non-psychotic hallucinations, and people having them report experiencing God in a physical, sensory way. Such experiences can be correlated with heightened activity in certain parts of the brain, the so-called “God-spot.” (Scientific American, October, 2007). For these people, God is real, “out there” and He/She presumably tells them things, like what to do or what is right.<br />
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Do I believe in that kind of God? Yes and no. I believe this is a natural phenomenon, a genuine neurological and cultural event that occurs in some people, and for those people, there is no denying their experience that they have encountered a self-transcendent “otherness,” which they name God. Do I believe these phenomena are best interpreted as evidence for a divine, supernatural God? No. A side-effect of brain activity is a better explanation, in my best judgment.<br />
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Dreams, which we have every night, are also mental phenomena that arise from activity in certain areas of the brain (e.g., Alan Hobson: Dreaming as Delirium. MIT Press, 1999). Dreams have that quality of otherness, that is, the feeling that they arise not from me, but from somewhere outside of me. Yet that feeling alone does not justify, in my view, the claim that dreams originate from a divine source. Throughout most of history, dreams were thought to have divine origin. But today, I think the evidence favors a brain origin.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCshLbul9sMc7svSlNDgvng5_hjNKv08Z1ybHD4wG0s40XrGPUf9vk1C_pVMllqo6lGtNl6ziFnpu2AAXq3EOvkneDaBUxM-a3TVLdblsFPsoqvl3BZLJUUqLPtOjqMWcvKeJ7/s1600/iamevrywhr.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733544904807265698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCshLbul9sMc7svSlNDgvng5_hjNKv08Z1ybHD4wG0s40XrGPUf9vk1C_pVMllqo6lGtNl6ziFnpu2AAXq3EOvkneDaBUxM-a3TVLdblsFPsoqvl3BZLJUUqLPtOjqMWcvKeJ7/s320/iamevrywhr.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 166px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 221px;" /></a>4. A fourth kind of God is approached from one of Aquinas’ five “proofs,” the argument from contingency. Aquinas did not have a convincing argument but I believe it can be fixed up into a fair argument for the existence of God. First Aquinas’ argument:<br />
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A. Contingent things exist (those things that just happen to exist now, but might not have, and didn’t exist in the past, and probably won’t in the future. You are an example of a contingent thing, as am I, and as is everything in human experience).<br />
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B. Each contingent thing at some time does not exist (by definition –that’s what contingent means).<br />
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C. If everything were contingent, there would be a time when nothing existed (by definition of contingent).<br />
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D. If there was a time when nothing existed, that would still be the situation today (because nothing comes from nothing).<br />
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E. Hence if everything were contingent, nothing would exist today.<br />
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F. Things do exist today. Hence, everything cannot be contingent. Therefore a non-contingent (eternal) being must exist and that is God.<br />
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There are two obvious errors in the argument, in my judgment (and I am neither logician, philosopher, or theologian). The first is in statement C. It presupposes without justification that there had to be a moment when all contingent things did not exist. But why? Animals and plants, for example, go out of existence (die) at different times. Subatomic particles go in and out of existence at different times and rates, all through the vacuum of space. There is no reason to suppose that there must have been a single instant when nothing existed.<br />
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The second error is in statement D, which supposes that nothing comes from nothing. We know that in the quantum world, particles pop into existence all the time, for no reason at all. And more obviously, we know that creativity exists, and one definition of creativity is to make something exist where it did not before, like a bridge or a television. Aquinas would not have known about quantum mechanics, but he surely would have known about creativity.<br />
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I think an argument similar to Aquinas’ can be made without these errors:<br />
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A. Creativity exists as a natural phenomenon, observed in nature, and known personally by introspection and other human experience.<br />
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B. Creativity produces something out of nothing. This depends on how you define “something” and “nothing,” but surely we can say with confidence that humans have produced gunpowder, airplanes, and computers which did not exist before.<br />
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At a fine grain of psychological analysis, we can argue that human creativity is inherent in every act of intentionality (e.g., Brentano, Psychology From An Empirical Standpoint, 1874), and that creativity therefore is a fundamental property of human psychology. That can be verified by introspective observation and reasonable generalization.<br />
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C. Everything that exists was created. Nothing comes from nothing (in other words, nothing is uncaused), but creativity is something rather than nothing.<br />
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D. Humans exist; the world exists.<br />
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E. Therefore, there is a supernatural creator of all things not created by humans or other natural sources of creativity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_0Y1zYqPwdjwEm1xlHhCrwyeAKLsLprw4Ljtv9vKjmXA-_j5lS7kE28XBY60tU8axGVMl81LaBDXrvIcnRN7aHJswX546YXfhtAfwgnf53qtjmTqi8ovBbl_YTf-TvwTLNzPV/s1600/brahman.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733546973432016050" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_0Y1zYqPwdjwEm1xlHhCrwyeAKLsLprw4Ljtv9vKjmXA-_j5lS7kE28XBY60tU8axGVMl81LaBDXrvIcnRN7aHJswX546YXfhtAfwgnf53qtjmTqi8ovBbl_YTf-TvwTLNzPV/s320/brahman.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 167px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 129px;" /></a>This argument establishes the existence of a superhuman, supernatural creator, which easily falls within the scope of entities that can be called “God.” This is not a personal god, only a divine creator, like Brahman, or the Creator of the Deists.<br />
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By implication, we humans are gods also, demiurges, if you will, because we are also endowed with the quality of creativity, the power to make something out of nothing. This in turn suggests, but does not prove, that we humans can know God the creator, inasmuch as we have the same or similar power of creativity.<br />
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The weak point of the argument is statement C, nothing comes from nothing, or more exactly, nothing is uncaused. That can’t be proved and it might be wrong, but I side with Einstein, who said, “God does not play dice.” I don’t think there is such a thing as pure randomness, only limits to our powers of pattern recognition. That’s an article of belief based on life experience, but I admit it could be mistaken. Certainly it is contradicted by principles of statistics and the physics derived from statistics, but so be it.<br />
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If we allow the assumption in statement C, I think this makes a pretty good argument for the existence of a divine Creator – not the bearded guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and not the Old Testament creator whose actions were documented (by whom?) in Genesis. This argument establishes only a principle of supernatural creativity. It’s not much, but it’s something, not nothing. Do I believe it? Yes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiSTdS8Wo6iNYW2jvo5FG3pwm1eM2ogh8GTPsZDBEvj3EFrwp-vLe3EeWXnR0xoXTCZsYw_VCJlCFnmJtVIho1IGYmXUEHubkJ43Xu3v1beFMLcw2tUwYficwagf3SW-ixBSTV/s1600/blake_god1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733545114320142706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiSTdS8Wo6iNYW2jvo5FG3pwm1eM2ogh8GTPsZDBEvj3EFrwp-vLe3EeWXnR0xoXTCZsYw_VCJlCFnmJtVIho1IGYmXUEHubkJ43Xu3v1beFMLcw2tUwYficwagf3SW-ixBSTV/s320/blake_god1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 238px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 173px;" /></a>5. The fifth and final kind of God is approached in a way similar to the previous one, and also derives from Aquinas, this time his argument from design. Like the previous one discussed, I think Aquinas’ argument here is fatally flawed, but can be fixed up. First, Aquinas’ argument:<br />
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A. We see around us evidence of intelligently designed objects, such as the wing of a bird.<br />
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B. Things do not design themselves.<br />
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C. They must have been designed.<br />
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D. Hence a great (superhuman, supernatural) intelligent designer must have designed complex natural things.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyCvlvl7txRg5YglozEuhJ6vOFotfA2B7hg2a2u8iKU9abU4kJYJSZFcbHIN2ruYBnbD4sO55ifvu2UJpIdOv5PL4K_LpsQwoBdT3TKoek2D4F0oipeS5WvCX0e-sCd4XJbHOC/s1600/evolution.jpeg"></a>The rebuttals to this argument are well-known and well-worn today. Chief among them is the fact that the theory of evolution shows that natural objects, even those as complex as the wing of a bird, come about not through the efforts of a divine designer, but as a result of accidental mutations and arbitrary environmental selection pressures.<br />
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Evolution is an extremely compelling theory that has withstood many thousands of empirical tests and observations. People who do not accept this rebuttal do not sufficiently understand the theory of evolution.<br />
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So basically, Aquinas’ argument fails because its first premise is unsound: the estimation that a complex thing was intelligently designed is an opinion, a judgment based on ignorance. It is not a necessary inference or a defensible assumption. A wing looks complex, yes, but that is not sufficient reason to say it was created by an intelligent designer. A brain is complex too, but also a natural product of evolution. There is no basis for the assumption of statement A.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNx8bgsPIfsO39spFTDy76cR9x5XsCz9elvhkHKLLIo4GlHbc6scvLLMJ6cCLZ3hlbgOchV6ZB2o82V13uxiteWlTKuzTRTbxTcp5-RzBZQTpmTL2MNQbhiF77Rwmbvp1JPE5B/s1600/evolution.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733545620183688690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNx8bgsPIfsO39spFTDy76cR9x5XsCz9elvhkHKLLIo4GlHbc6scvLLMJ6cCLZ3hlbgOchV6ZB2o82V13uxiteWlTKuzTRTbxTcp5-RzBZQTpmTL2MNQbhiF77Rwmbvp1JPE5B/s320/evolution.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 128px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 171px;" /></a>A common counter-argument is a question: If you found a pocket watch on a deserted beach, would you assume it was the natural fruit of some exotic tree, or would you assume it had an intelligent designer? I would assume intelligent designer, of the human variety. Humans are intelligent and we design and build many complex things, from calendars to computers. The things we design and build are indeed the products of intelligent designers. But we’re not God and the existence of our own complex products are not arguments for the existence of God, unless you want to argue, as some have, that humans invent God by analogy from themselves.<br />
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And yet, I think there is some merit in Aquinas’ argument from design, that can be salvaged and reshaped.<br />
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What if there were empirical evidence of a transcendent creator/designer, one that designed and produced complex natural phenomena and whose existence was independent of human intentionality (or that of any other animal or plant, just to be complete).<br />
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To say again, what if you could verify, at any time, by repeatable, personal observation and conservative logical inference, that complex natural phenomena were being produced “de novo,” (not by evolution, but apparently from nothing).<br />
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I’m not talking about near-infinitesimal subatomic particles out in space, but great big, human-scale phenomena that you can bump into and which fit perfectly into the course of your life as if designed for it. And these phenomena are produced without a shred of ordinary human creativity, intentionality, or consciousness; and they are not produced over the span of millennia, but in the frame of hours, days, and weeks; and not gradually, in some drawn-out evolutionary trial-and-error, but right now, fully-formed.<br />
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You may be thinking it is a trick, a word-game. How about an apple? It fits perfectly into my life as if it belonged, keeps me alive, is tangible and real, and no human created it. Close, but wrong. Apples are products of natural selection, evolution over millennia. So not an apple, not an egg, not a horse. I’m talking about natural phenomena that do not arise from biological evolution (nor from the geological and cosmological processes of the environment that complement biological evolution by natural selection).<br />
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Okay, then it must be ideas or cultural products: Fermat’s last theorem, Shakespeare’s tragedies, Beethoven’s string quartets, Maxwell’s equations. Those are well-designed things that change lives. Close, but no. They are explicit products of human effort, intention, creativity and consciousness, all ruled out in this scenario. I’m talking about phenomena that do not arise from human intentionality.<br />
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It seems to me, if we could verify a process of production for important, well-designed, complex natural things such as I have in mind, outside the principles of evolution, and without the slightest touch of human intentionality, it would be justifiable to concede that there must be a superhuman, transcendent, intelligent designer of those phenomena.<br />
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Okay, that’s the setup, here’s the answer: the products are luck and insight. They are real and important phenomena of human experience, and famously they are not produced by human intentionality. You cannot “do” luck, and you cannot force insight. They happen to you, sometimes, for no reason, often when you least expect them.<br />
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In the vague category of “luck,” I include events that are positive, desirable, and fit into your life in an important way, like winning the lottery or falling in love or finding the perfect parking space. I’m ruling out so-called “bad luck” for now, because I’m not sure what that is. Luck is what we call the source of an outcome that is desired but apparently did not come about as a result of intentional effort or known natural processes. Saying that something was just lucky is tantamount to saying it was uncaused by nature or by oneself.<br />
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In the nebulous category of “insight” I include sudden knowledge about the nature of things, or of something in particular, or of relationships among things, or about how to do something, or what something means. Again, insight may come to you, but you can’t make it happen. Insight may favor the so-called “prepared mind,” but to say something occurred to you by insight is tantamount to saying it was uncaused by nature or by yourself.<br />
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Now all we need is to demonstrate that there is an identifiable, empirically verifiable, non-human, non-evolutionary source of those two products. Then we’d be in a position to say we had a case for the existence of a God, an intelligent designer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqyv45Po8L1-PKT-p5uQIyC2zOLBkQzqycI1yLCUDRsLy8iKaLqlJYfB6W74NyoizvTpjY1JEXq8P2ToidqfD8QWO8o4yBqdwIi9ViukpyJWaViiwCukLMKxZDbbC7WwFWXZZS/s1600/300px-BH-LMC.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5733545292523555106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqyv45Po8L1-PKT-p5uQIyC2zOLBkQzqycI1yLCUDRsLy8iKaLqlJYfB6W74NyoizvTpjY1JEXq8P2ToidqfD8QWO8o4yBqdwIi9ViukpyJWaViiwCukLMKxZDbbC7WwFWXZZS/s320/300px-BH-LMC.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 163px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 204px;" /></a>Elsewhere, I have called this source, “the black hole of non-experience” (Adams: The Three-In-One Mind, Paperless Press, revised edition, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9837177-1-3).<br />
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It is essentially what it sounds like, a suppression of intentional consciousness that terminates all known experience. It is the culmination of certain well-known (among practitioners) meditative techniques. It is analogous to non-dreaming sleep, in which the sleeper has no experience, no awareness of self or world, and performs no action directed at self or world. The difference is that the Black Hole is accessible from full wakefulness.<br />
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If this so-called Black Hole is a non-experience, what justifies identifying it as the source of self-transcendent design? That comes retrospectively, after the encounter with the Black Hole. During hours, days, or weeks after the encounter, one notices a meaningful increase in the frequency and intensity of good luck and sudden insight in one’s experience. These are large effects, easily identifiable. Could they be mere coincidence? Yes.<br />
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However, the effects are repeatable and reversible (in the sense that their frequency and intensity decline over time). So it is possible to perform a traditional ABA quasi-experimental reversal study. When that is done, one finds that the effects are reliably prevalent and intense after an encounter with the Black Hole, noticeably less so in the control condition (the “B” condition), in which the Black Hole is not encountered for a period of time.<br />
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So based on that personal-empirical evidence and the arguments proposed above, there is reasonable justification to identify a self-transcendent creator/designer that is not a product of evolution by natural selection. That qualifies as a category of God. Do I believe it? Yes.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-80769757072796634932012-06-06T07:21:00.001-07:002012-06-06T07:21:12.904-07:00What Happens After Death?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUIrOVSRgZSWgF2Yruk7fFmSXdgZfsSt6mMorlyvGqBsTI9KciJFB9ay5jgShOvsFYj57fAkJQftW_K5SxHQ4SsambkNJgZYP99nrpEdL4EaTxMNjMcAvM0yt72_TUVIiasN2/s1600/heaven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUIrOVSRgZSWgF2Yruk7fFmSXdgZfsSt6mMorlyvGqBsTI9KciJFB9ay5jgShOvsFYj57fAkJQftW_K5SxHQ4SsambkNJgZYP99nrpEdL4EaTxMNjMcAvM0yt72_TUVIiasN2/s1600/heaven.jpg" /></a></div>
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At death I suddenly awake from the dream, so compelling, so long. I am disoriented. I would blink, try to rejoin the dream, but I have no body. I call out, but no one hears my screams. Then I realize it is pointless, for I can no longer distinguish myself from anyone else. There is only we, no me. I dissolve into you. You must remember me, for that keeps the dream alive for you.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-11574681831664620752011-08-14T10:57:00.000-07:002011-08-14T11:12:48.407-07:00Why Solipsism is Impossible<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFGKYThdHRM34EKYB7gARM6Sno6ddob-gwI4mNfQH1Qgy7Xv4kGiwYtjrzmmNSWRfjqD3ccAXdziR5gl5y82Tfc5EsiWCLoL7P0cfUV1Rl2104k6p4zjF1MjkVhtLIa9SPYZf/s1600/solipsism_t_shirt-p.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFGKYThdHRM34EKYB7gARM6Sno6ddob-gwI4mNfQH1Qgy7Xv4kGiwYtjrzmmNSWRfjqD3ccAXdziR5gl5y82Tfc5EsiWCLoL7P0cfUV1Rl2104k6p4zjF1MjkVhtLIa9SPYZf/s320/solipsism_t_shirt-p.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640772539389840050" border="0" /></a>Solipsism is a huge problem for anyone interested in promoting introspection as a way to understand the mind (which includes me). You can only introspect on your own mind, not on anybody else’s. So technically, all you really know for sure is your own mind. The existence of any other minds is purely hypothetical.
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<br />The same would go for the existence of the entire world. If you accept introspectively known sense impressions as valid information, you realize that you have no other information. All your sensory data are known to you and only you, by mental impressions. A touch on the arm is known as the mental feeling of a touch on the arm. The arm itself knows nothing. All you can know for sure is the mental impressions you have of the world. You can’t know if anything else is really “out there.”
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<br />In the most extreme form, a solipsist asserts, “I am the only self that exists. All the rest of the world is, at best, a hypothesis, or possibly just a figment of my imagination.”
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<br />There is no way to refute solipsism. Any counter-argument against it would just be another figment of my imagination. If it is false, I could never know it, because my own mind is the only thing known to me. Solipsism is an extreme form of idealism, which says that only mental events can be known to exist (or, only mental events do exist).
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyo6TNEBAx5OavlnmfVXJKrHX4Vw3Xw2zJbXYcKmAeTgK2EkWWSJAeRbu5EpGwkWtp8AIvgIYS4IlGSMeLzbYCtmkh_B1WicYq2GDZ1S9-Ycw0czGMrZ5F_Abn4dfNR_7R_h3/s1600/Feelwelcome.co.uk.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 176px; height: 93px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyo6TNEBAx5OavlnmfVXJKrHX4Vw3Xw2zJbXYcKmAeTgK2EkWWSJAeRbu5EpGwkWtp8AIvgIYS4IlGSMeLzbYCtmkh_B1WicYq2GDZ1S9-Ycw0czGMrZ5F_Abn4dfNR_7R_h3/s320/Feelwelcome.co.uk.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640773822741196770" border="0" /></a>Once you take introspective findings as valid knowledge, you are confronted with the question, How is introspective knowledge different from other, empirical knowledge, such as scientific knowledge? The difference is that introspective knowledge of one’s own mind is certain, whereas scientific knowledge is hypothetical, merely a set of agreed-upon propositions. Scientific knowledge cannot be certain because it is not acquired through introspection, which gives the only direct, certain knowledge. <span style="font-size:78%;">(Image: feelwelcome.com.uk)</span>
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<br />Consequently, in scientific psychology, introspection is not allowed. No introspective observations can be accepted into discussion of how the mind works because introspection is private, and if you accept private data as valid, it takes precedence over hypothetical, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiy6QJacaHbbWZrbHX_wfGZwwDQz_RRD_guUxYX5Tl9MCKCcfE5yExkGSsBF4I8IbZxL9z2VeS0ptNANG_AQmmSI1ZIDgDKpi6AoycThgTdIY1w7M_YvPClreV6aILoSvlFC0o/s1600/Alpha-EEG-Synch-between-vis.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 177px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiy6QJacaHbbWZrbHX_wfGZwwDQz_RRD_guUxYX5Tl9MCKCcfE5yExkGSsBF4I8IbZxL9z2VeS0ptNANG_AQmmSI1ZIDgDKpi6AoycThgTdIY1w7M_YvPClreV6aILoSvlFC0o/s320/Alpha-EEG-Synch-between-vis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640774083681761506" border="0" /></a>consensus-based scientific data, and no further scientific agreement or progress can be expected or achieved. In other words, introspection implicitly carries the threat of idealism, and then solipsism, which is ultimately nihilistic. If my own mind is the only mind that can be known directly for sure, how is a scientific psychology possible? It isn’t. The threat of solipsism therefore is serious. It would destroy everything else. That’s why it is simply outlawed, and so is introspection. And that’s why there is no generally accepted methodology like “scientific introspection.” (Despite that, I have published a book by that title, explaining how it would be possible).
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<br />The threat of solipsism is false; not a real threat at all. It is based on a misunderstanding of the human mind, which does not, and cannot exist in isolation from other human minds. One's own self and mind are learned (acquired) from socialization and cannot ever be separated from that context. The image of Rodin’s solitary thinker is profoundly misleading. We are not monads, and never have been.
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<br />The philosophical problem of solipsism is posed by abstracting one’s own mind from that of others, but this abstraction presupposes that the world is already given as a shared world. Hence solipsism presupposes its own refutation. It is a confusion, not a valid proposition.
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<br />True solipsism would require that I do not experience myself as a single self in distinction from other selves, but that I experience myself as the only self that exists. But that is impossible, for self is only defined by other. So again, solipsism is impossible in principle.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX705mAN7ujgnW_PluCwB_g5CV9QOQYiXRfUJO-AFC13DZ87JmCDkQu_ogEQKKJLygTgRMNDoBWIuAu6Gyv0LotTR3FEGANgqVoAuUVj1yW6ISj_rD83rpYZ4dQf8nV2hNtrtL/s1600/solipsism-300x300.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX705mAN7ujgnW_PluCwB_g5CV9QOQYiXRfUJO-AFC13DZ87JmCDkQu_ogEQKKJLygTgRMNDoBWIuAu6Gyv0LotTR3FEGANgqVoAuUVj1yW6ISj_rD83rpYZ4dQf8nV2hNtrtL/s320/solipsism-300x300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640774258475444450" border="0" /></a>What about a person, say, an infant, who has virtually no self-awareness. Could that person be a solipsist? Such a person does not have the resources to contemplate the possibility of solipsism. So the thesis of solipsism is impossible in principle in this case also.
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<br />Suppose a philosopher, using reason and analysis, abstracts the personal self away from its social origins and maintenance, and considers it as an absolute, transcendental ego, disconnected from all others. From that position of the abstracted transcendental ego, could solipsism be taken seriously?
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<br />Husserl, inventor of the transcendental ego, might seem to have believed that. But he also wrote that only his reflections on intersubjectivity make “full and proper sense” of the transcendental ego (Husserl cited by Zahavi, 1996). This is why Husserl claims that a phenomenological discussion of subjectivity in the end turns out to be a discussion not simply of the I, but of the we. Thus once again, even from the position of the transcendental ego, solipsism is not possible in principle.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hYetE1qKnkDKa0yV-mZG43COZLe_86oB5UqYZYnlEERu3npUvalyKGTUqrWje9nlNJb9L_gERsb_9QCRJ6eKyQH4DQAeIDIMdvmTtkkQChiW6rSZHHh1oVEe60dxMH6WApsl/s1600/flyingpig.jpg-w%253D216%2526h%253D207.gif.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hYetE1qKnkDKa0yV-mZG43COZLe_86oB5UqYZYnlEERu3npUvalyKGTUqrWje9nlNJb9L_gERsb_9QCRJ6eKyQH4DQAeIDIMdvmTtkkQChiW6rSZHHh1oVEe60dxMH6WApsl/s320/flyingpig.jpg-w%253D216%2526h%253D207.gif.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640774724760491010" border="0" /></a>What is possible: An object can be experienced in different mental attitudes. Hegel noted that a book can be experienced by the senses not as a book, but as merely an existent object with properties, not as a social, historical object with meaning. So it is possible to “pretend” or imagine that one’s own self is merely an existent object, divorced of its social meaning. But that is imagination. We can imagine flying pigs, too, but that doesn’t prove a thing. We can imagine an isolated, mondadic self, but to take that fantasy seriously is the delusion that constitutes solipsism. So that solves a problem you didn't even know you had. Don't thank me.
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<br />Reference
<br />Zahavi, D. (1996). Husserl's Intersubjective Transformation of Transcendental Philosophy. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 27 (3), 228-245.
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<br />Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-28352458918319066032011-06-23T13:18:00.000-07:002011-06-23T13:23:45.956-07:00What do you know when you know you are going to sneeze?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjweNTUIRkcb-rDUUjMRxTkupTWzi59dlCIrcZW7UMQ7HoxJwPfCzlOrMAr5p-0cDy_Cin24lyFDirYXThThkN3QDIq_2FWVuLXipFY3QRvE263Dmc-B_AyMQhwrkFvdlh6P-SM/s1600/Sneeze1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 220px; height: 173px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjweNTUIRkcb-rDUUjMRxTkupTWzi59dlCIrcZW7UMQ7HoxJwPfCzlOrMAr5p-0cDy_Cin24lyFDirYXThThkN3QDIq_2FWVuLXipFY3QRvE263Dmc-B_AyMQhwrkFvdlh6P-SM/s320/Sneeze1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621512425664091954" border="0" /></a>What causes a sneeze? Is it a tickle in your nose? The sneeze is a surprise, a reflex, not a response to a stimulus comparable to the one that leads you to brush a mosquito from your arm. When you’re going to sneeze, you open your mouth and get ready. Sometimes nothing happens and the sneeze “goes away.”<br /><br />We should assume that a sneeze is a response to some biological event. You can’t sneeze at will. It is a reflex response to something going on in the body. Most probably a sneeze is a response to an irritation of the mucus membranes somewhere in the nasal passages.<br /><br />But I have no awareness of my mucous membranes, in the nose or anywhere else. I can’t visualize them; they don’t give me any information; and I am unable to introspect on their state of being. This is true for most of the inside of the body. We have no direct mental access to its various states of being. You can feel a pain in your knee, but you cannot introspect on the various parts of the knee itself. You know when your bladder is full, but you have no direct mental communication with your bladder.<br /><br />Yet there is warning for a sneeze. Rarely, if ever, is a sneeze completely a surprise. We are aware that a sneeze “is coming.” What is the nature of that awareness?<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4B0tjNe4RAe-RWu9hqg4cr14z1N0keg9TiYG_HZhSxfE8WjoGXlgW7AA2h6_jLWm3RnKgy9ItkGuCe0YD6qMBX2-y0GE9wI0t5LglX4vRH-rdL3Btkbp5-Xoox7CORlJmq9bu/s1600/brain+activity.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 151px; height: 151px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4B0tjNe4RAe-RWu9hqg4cr14z1N0keg9TiYG_HZhSxfE8WjoGXlgW7AA2h6_jLWm3RnKgy9ItkGuCe0YD6qMBX2-y0GE9wI0t5LglX4vRH-rdL3Btkbp5-Xoox7CORlJmq9bu/s320/brain+activity.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621512670399258914" border="0" /></a>My hypothesis is that we are aware of a particular kind of brain activity that is distinctive enough to be discriminated from others, and associated with the actual sneeze. How that could be so is a mystery. The brain does not give off any sensory data, like the heart does. I can hear and feel my heart beating so to that extent I am aware of its location and activity in my body. But I have no direct awareness of my brain. I only know it’s in my head because I have been told. I can’t feel it in there. It doesn’t make any noise and doesn’t jump around.<br /><br />But somehow, we can discriminate brain states from each other. We know the difference between having a full bladder and a pain in the knee and being about to sneeze. But since we do not have direct awareness of the brain, we have no easy way of describing these brain states, so we talk about them in terms of associated effects. For example, the sneeze itself is sensory and observable, so we say of the pre-sneeze condition, “I am going to sneeze.” All the talk is about the sneeze. But actually, what we’re referring to is not the sneeze-to-be, but the pre-sneeze condition of the brain, which we have learned to discriminate but not name.<br /><br />Other examples of awareness of, and discrimination of, specific brain states include being aware of blood sugar level, pre-orgasm, pain, a feeling of nervousness or restlessness, being overcaffeinated, and being drunk. We talk about these brain states in terms of their observable bodily effects, but actually, we can discriminate the phenomena as specific brain conditions before there are overt bodily effects.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqcpm3Q_Ei2UlvBcddw8lknSoN1Dup3qufR_otHGoIEzEMXsrp5eWgu2F4_i66U6GzS3PmW4iXMcZgeemPW0z5CYsmAp4ey15Bhf1OExcDGkXfWG0J6vdCw3heWP1cifl6mns/s1600/dreamflying.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 232px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqcpm3Q_Ei2UlvBcddw8lknSoN1Dup3qufR_otHGoIEzEMXsrp5eWgu2F4_i66U6GzS3PmW4iXMcZgeemPW0z5CYsmAp4ey15Bhf1OExcDGkXfWG0J6vdCw3heWP1cifl6mns/s320/dreamflying.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621512898490124818" border="0" /></a>I think the most dramatic example of being aware of a brain condition, without being able to name it directly, is dreaming. We make up all sorts of fantastical stories upon awakening, because we have no vocabulary for naming or discussing the brain activity that we just experienced.<br /><br />It is inconceivable that someone properly socialized would not be aware of their heart. We have anatomy books, the history of medicine, the doctor’s <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTapHfBTuJtKau047SbQt1uKPG6mlP046AmLPOsQBIvNdD1UiTOIR0c6uUoSC-WKTT6hF7gtKbr_cTnPnU-3R7zw7IvJ_RRXQYaj3JqyZMxjyf_JKBCyqIoVhhUrD9epdOXMe5/s1600/heartbeat.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 178px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTapHfBTuJtKau047SbQt1uKPG6mlP046AmLPOsQBIvNdD1UiTOIR0c6uUoSC-WKTT6hF7gtKbr_cTnPnU-3R7zw7IvJ_RRXQYaj3JqyZMxjyf_JKBCyqIoVhhUrD9epdOXMe5/s320/heartbeat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621513053510483138" border="0" /></a>stethoscope, Poe’s story of the “Tell-tale heart,” and so on. But we do not have comparable socialization in our culture to name and discuss brain activities. We don’t even have any reliable visual imagery to attach to different brain states. That’s too bad. If we did have appropriate vocabulary, we could contribute a lot to understanding of the brain simply by discriminating and naming its various states when they occur.<br /><br />We don’t understand the interface between the biological neurology and the mental experience, but the answer is, when you are about to sneeze, you are aware of a particular brain state.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-29348617610830534192011-05-11T16:10:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:35:58.402-07:00Why is Logic Logical?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmArMb1JjSthXGDbcfjIobE4ehqb8zEIWtXc7Jlr5QTEvTUf9JS1o18Ok6sgq04YzscPw9u2JhxtSqcyXc-4EDKfUt97fPr1h7CWMiYur-0bEzhiyTeDFmJYfxD50tD2Lpv65/s1600/spock.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmArMb1JjSthXGDbcfjIobE4ehqb8zEIWtXc7Jlr5QTEvTUf9JS1o18Ok6sgq04YzscPw9u2JhxtSqcyXc-4EDKfUt97fPr1h7CWMiYur-0bEzhiyTeDFmJYfxD50tD2Lpv65/s320/spock.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605600008379128370" border="0" /></a>For years I have puzzled over the validity of logic. Why does one idea compel another? What is the nature of that compulsion? For example, why is the “law” of the excluded middle true: A thing cannot be, and not be, simultaneously. A equals A, and A does not equal not-A. There is nothing “in the middle” between A and not-A. That’s what Aristotle said, and it’s been true ever since. But is it only true by convention, or does logic follow some natural laws, either laws of the world or laws of the mind?<br /><br />In day-to-day experience, the middle is not excluded. There is the luxury car and there is the economy car, and plenty of choices in between. There is one dollar, and no dollars, and fifty cents in between. There are guilty and innocent, and shades in between. So why is it true that there is nothing in between A and not-A?<br /><br />At first consideration it seems that the difference is that the law of the excluded middle is about existence. It says a thing cannot BE and not-BE simultaneously. That’s about what IS. By contrast, everyday examples are all about degrees of qualities that all exist. The economy car exists, and so does the luxury car, and all the ones in between. The qualities of price and value vary along some (abstract) dimension, but all of it exists.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIG6C8Wwj6vEJTVbeE3ZNsjgIuObqi2r1j5Q13SiwDiK_OOS6KYgefxkKT24zut6QDAAzkAvwAQuzk_tWwjJnafLmnkI_2_6x-IctWI5d0jmVsGGHjoTEabydqKFuWWSd092rn/s1600/car+interior.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 189px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIG6C8Wwj6vEJTVbeE3ZNsjgIuObqi2r1j5Q13SiwDiK_OOS6KYgefxkKT24zut6QDAAzkAvwAQuzk_tWwjJnafLmnkI_2_6x-IctWI5d0jmVsGGHjoTEabydqKFuWWSd092rn/s320/car+interior.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605600543510868802" border="0" /></a>But we cannot say that THIS particular car (not in the abstract, but this one right here) exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. Why not? Because that would be illogical. But why? That is the question.<br /><br />Is it a matter of abstraction? In algebra, which is very abstract, we all agree that A cannot be equal to not-A. that is uncontroversial. But we refuse to say the same about a particular stone.<br /><br />The difference seems to boil down to what exists and doesn’t exist. But how is that determined? How do we know what exists and doesn’t exist? Do flying elephants exist? Well, yes and no. It depends on what you mean by “exist.” They exist in animated movies and in the minds of millions of children, but not on game reserves in Africa.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigOGDPqDu1tBV-8-aly07b5p_0hWhg6KQhyk1RYK5ihMy_zdNJnPORiDfH3aDvvaU5LhiJdFlXCrbjGfoyFv4tOYaWWxf8U3btlH8J5w4-az-C_0-_80RcjZAgQxG-2foLQF3E/s1600/Dumbo.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 158px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigOGDPqDu1tBV-8-aly07b5p_0hWhg6KQhyk1RYK5ihMy_zdNJnPORiDfH3aDvvaU5LhiJdFlXCrbjGfoyFv4tOYaWWxf8U3btlH8J5w4-az-C_0-_80RcjZAgQxG-2foLQF3E/s320/Dumbo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605600697373850274" border="0" /></a>So do we restrict the scope of the question to things that exist physically, not mentally? That would seem an arbitrary restriction. Anyway, it would make algebra and logic, and science, higher mathematics, and law, and much else, not susceptible to the law of the excluded middle, and by extension, not susceptible to logic and reason. The purpose of logic is to bring the order of reason to abstraction. So it can’t be right to exclude mental abstraction from logic.<br /><br />Besides, even in the so-called physical world, there are counterexamples to the law of the excluded middle. Light exists as light waves and as photons, simultaneously. That seems to violate the rule, doesn’t it? Hawking radiation around a black hole exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. There aren’t too many examples like that however, and in general, we tend to quarantine the principles of relativity theory when we consider logic in general.<br /><br />I think the answer lies not in abstraction itself, but in the human capacity for discrimination. When we are ignorant of a thing or a topic, we cannot perceive distinctions. Someone who does not know wine literally cannot distinguish between cabernet and merlot. A person who does <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisn51NPeCkflHR-ULXkybhw6ByuShM5srvMSgd48yKGRm4-8S5_RzXmt1C5GYwYgRAA-bL9a4gsCb-v_8yxU51sGMBuSzljcRaX0ibuVFvxqwQDE_vfWumQUMOLJqwHThuWfs8/s1600/lock.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisn51NPeCkflHR-ULXkybhw6ByuShM5srvMSgd48yKGRm4-8S5_RzXmt1C5GYwYgRAA-bL9a4gsCb-v_8yxU51sGMBuSzljcRaX0ibuVFvxqwQDE_vfWumQUMOLJqwHThuWfs8/s320/lock.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605600875732897602" border="0" /></a>not know philosophy cannot tell the difference between Kantian and Cartesian ideas. Someone who does not know airplanes cannot tell if they are about to board a Boeing or an Airbus. I remember once looking over a locksmith’s shoulder as he fixed a lock on my door. “Look at that!” he exclaimed in disgust when he took off the outer cowling to expose the insides of the lock. “The quality these days is just disgusting.” I saw nothing but a jumble of metal parts. I wasn’t disgusted because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be seeing. I failed to discriminate what he did.<br /><br />After training or other experience however, it becomes possible to discriminate parts from wholes and parts from other parts. Then a person can discuss the merits of cabernet and merlot, or well-made from poorly-made lock mechanisms. It works the same in the world of abstract ideas. It takes instruction or experience to discriminate democracy from authoritarianism and A from not-A.<br /><br />Simple sensory discriminations enable abstraction. A door lock is a door lock, but a well-made lock is an abstraction, it is a kind of lock, or a category of locks. Once the discrimination has been made and conceptualized, multiple instances of a like kind can be grouped into an abstract category.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT3S3BzKXGr3FNKCYOCiAZ5hUv0B-HjXmY_64GDj8POTm22o6ZXzUagL-5CuANQPmOu96nXl-4DVKKmUPTxzUaczQfyDC-2iLRt73NRv5zXcD_PREv6AD-siqFqtoLsBgH1Zoe/s1600/farm+animals.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT3S3BzKXGr3FNKCYOCiAZ5hUv0B-HjXmY_64GDj8POTm22o6ZXzUagL-5CuANQPmOu96nXl-4DVKKmUPTxzUaczQfyDC-2iLRt73NRv5zXcD_PREv6AD-siqFqtoLsBgH1Zoe/s320/farm+animals.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605601055120274498" border="0" /></a>Thus “dog” is a category of animals, but that abstraction was developed only after I became able to discriminate dogs from cats, and from other kinds of animals. In turn, that discrimination was explicitly taught by parents and teachers, who dwell obsessively on helping children discriminate categories of animals. Why that is considered important is a separate mystery. Finally, there must have been some sensory discrimination at the bottom, by which I learned to identify my dog, a particular, concrete, sensory dog, as a “dog” and discriminated it from myself. So the sequence of abstraction goes from a particular, sensory being that exists right now in my presence, to a category of all such animals, which are then further discriminated and contrasted with other animals, and so on up the chain of abstraction.<br /><br />The sequence of discrimination, conceptualization, and categorization is so automatic that I suspect it is a faculty of the human mind. Teachers teach us how to discriminate and identify, and categorize dogs, cats, forms of government, and much else, but nobody teaches us how to discriminate in the first place. We just do it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYmIedNrCojonYqP060M7SjzEsLM69QLeI5-Ol7vke89W5Vvl_rZQn6bi-tqA1kY4fL3p7IUHgHMab-TnNZjMVMMIgran0fwG67tbXR6Lm8t_fsX1H-5XxlmRq94rkrN5Gwo0/s1600/Classical+Conditioning.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 221px; height: 221px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYmIedNrCojonYqP060M7SjzEsLM69QLeI5-Ol7vke89W5Vvl_rZQn6bi-tqA1kY4fL3p7IUHgHMab-TnNZjMVMMIgran0fwG67tbXR6Lm8t_fsX1H-5XxlmRq94rkrN5Gwo0/s320/Classical+Conditioning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605602023848168498" border="0" /></a>Other animals discriminate in a similar way. In classical conditioning, a type of learning, the dog learns to salivate when the bell rings. Why? We say the dog has “associated” the bell with forthcoming food. However the dog first had to discriminate the bell from the general background noise, and also the occurrence of food from other events, and also the fact that the bell sounds just before food appears. Those are all sensory discriminations that the dog learns fairly easily, without the benefit of language. As far as we know the dog does not conceptualize any of it, but does manage somehow to generalize a more-or-less abstract category about what we would call the conditioned stimulus, because if a buzzer is sounded instead of a bell, the dog salivates in the same way he would to the bell. He obviously has an abstract category of sorts.<br /><br />I’m not aware of any animal species with a nervous system that is not susceptible to classical conditioning, so I would have to conclude that discrimination and abstraction are built into the architecture of animal neurology.<br /><br />Does that answer the question of what compels one idea to follow another and why logic is logical? Partially, it does. But the rules of logic are themselves so abstract that it is difficult to believe they are neurological manifestations. Suppose a proposal says that if p exists, then q will always occur. But if we look and find that q did not occur, what is the only logical conclusion? It has to be that p does not exist. This rule is the absolute foundation of reasoning in science and statistics. What makes it valid?<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWKj5XB_mnIjconmjZr5jCP_ghYZm9gJhILQtb2_KxB479_NR61lq3oOOYHRGN-Msr_fw2pPYBg5EsrhxZuK5g5Iqm_RU3jCY-TqVmeoLdr8bKY5R4Im_Dfgk5iu97JrfYwgO/s1600/Reefer+light.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 197px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWKj5XB_mnIjconmjZr5jCP_ghYZm9gJhILQtb2_KxB479_NR61lq3oOOYHRGN-Msr_fw2pPYBg5EsrhxZuK5g5Iqm_RU3jCY-TqVmeoLdr8bKY5R4Im_Dfgk5iu97JrfYwgO/s320/Reefer+light.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605602385295868818" border="0" /></a>According to the analysis given here, that rule of logic, called modus tollens, is valid because it is an abstraction of sensory, bodily experience that many humans have discriminated and agreed is universal. We have all observed that if the bulb inside the refrigerator is working, then when you open the door, there will be light. If you do not see light, the conclusion is that the bulb is not working. Enough people have had experience like this, so that as a community, we have agreed the relationships involved are worthy of becoming a “law,” the law of modus tollens. It’s logical because we all say it is, not because of neurology.<br /><br />The implication of this finding is that reason compels one idea to follow from another because of generalization of discriminations that many people have similarly made and conceptualized and categorized. The validity of logic is a social construct, not a natural phenomenon.<br /><br />So what are we to make of the situation where people do not agree? Different groups insist that their god and only their god exists. Is there any concrete sensory discrimination at the bottom of those abstractions? I would say, no, and virtually all scientists would agree with me. Are there neurological differences supporting the abstractions? No. The human nervous system and brain is 99.999% similar across individuals.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBNc10rlbxj9GjIBPt4EMV4XESTkG1b1lbT3fa0lnkW5zX4jteaLGu4AGdUoVY7CGUn_s6tNO0_i18WgmGEGyH7uzNcl4Xpb4ZfqRg_Toa7l3cdSYe_-jor0asnR7iL9bGj8L/s1600/religious+logic+%25282%2529.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 223px; height: 223px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBNc10rlbxj9GjIBPt4EMV4XESTkG1b1lbT3fa0lnkW5zX4jteaLGu4AGdUoVY7CGUn_s6tNO0_i18WgmGEGyH7uzNcl4Xpb4ZfqRg_Toa7l3cdSYe_-jor0asnR7iL9bGj8L/s320/religious+logic+%25282%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605606044076811650" border="0" /></a>But are there discriminations among abstract ideas beneath the disagreements? Of course there are. Different groups have different ideas about history, justice, virtue, beauty, and many other abstract categories, and they assiduously teach these discriminations to their children. Higher abstractions are based on discriminations made among lower abstractions and it is around these higher abstractions that wars are fought. Fundamentally though, the mid-level abstractions upon which they are based do not rest upon sensory discriminations. The validity of logic in the abstract realms is socially constructed.<br /><br />At the bottom we are all the same kind of animal and make the same kinds of sensory discriminations and the same kinds of basic abstractions. It is only our teachers that guide us to abstractions among the abstractions, and therefore to differences we will kill for. Anybody can discriminate a brown skin from a white skin, narrow eyes from round eyes, male from female, but what those differences mean must be taught to us. There is no universal sensory or neurological basis, and therefore no intrinsic rationality that justifies what our teachers make of those differences. Whether my god or your god is the true god, is essentially culturally constructed, and we would say, “not logical.”<br /><br />Ideas compel other ideas then, not because there is some intrinsic validity to the rules of logic that make it so, but only for two reasons.<br /><br />One, because concrete, sensory discriminations that anyone, even a dog, can make, seem universal, as in classical conditioning. Red is different from blue, and we all agree on that, regardless of culture. Therefore it is “logical” to insist that Red cannot be Blue and vice versa.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPwUfnD6x-iut39Kw-EAg5orUe8sIARx5qX5FQ13QBT8wbW0Ra7J_gBUnh3_Z8TAKkpRmUYdpoaMgD7JJni1J2lB1pUoeLAItUm1tLRzzOQzyk-x2Av6l-99J5D8LmXRNgD4H/s1600/religious+war.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 159px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPwUfnD6x-iut39Kw-EAg5orUe8sIARx5qX5FQ13QBT8wbW0Ra7J_gBUnh3_Z8TAKkpRmUYdpoaMgD7JJni1J2lB1pUoeLAItUm1tLRzzOQzyk-x2Av6l-99J5D8LmXRNgD4H/s320/religious+war.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605602987432511922" border="0" /></a>And Two, logic is logical because the teachers in a cultural tradition decide, based on contingent values (that is, arbitrarily), that some abstract ideas “should” compel other abstract ideas. That compulsion is valid inasmuch as everybody lives in a culture and nobody can live outside of culture, so nobody is immune from cultural values. So if “The Bible is the word of God,” it follows that the Biblical God is the “correct” God. That is cultural logic.<br /><br />These two kinds of logic are both valid, but for different reasons.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-23530755003880042862011-01-08T14:22:00.001-08:002011-01-08T14:47:14.144-08:00New Evidence for ESP?<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pfZ6EC9TNSqje0g8_3uT7Q_u0R1y68zA42UzM0Q-ILRC1iAf7nOWn2dTdGBAVi3nbRZ9rc-8QYiXOYFzMf2zZtqihRr58DcZi9vOMrG30eMFQE_521CrfL2KOoZAJIN3poTu/s1600/psychic_phenomena_telepaty_psychokinesis.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pfZ6EC9TNSqje0g8_3uT7Q_u0R1y68zA42UzM0Q-ILRC1iAf7nOWn2dTdGBAVi3nbRZ9rc-8QYiXOYFzMf2zZtqihRr58DcZi9vOMrG30eMFQE_521CrfL2KOoZAJIN3poTu/s320/psychic_phenomena_telepaty_psychokinesis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944494708226418" border="0" /></a>The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a respected academic journal published by the American Psychological Association, will soon release an article by Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem, that supposedly demonstrates the existence of “extrasensory perception,” or ESP. A preprint of the paper is available at http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf.<br /><br />ESP is a term used in popular culture for unexplained psychic effects. It is used exclusively, for example in the New York Times article of Jan 5, 2011 reporting on Bem’s paper (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?src=me&ref=general). Academics refer to such effects either as “paranormal,” “parapsychological,” or “psi” phenomena. These psi phenomena allegedly include a potpourri of unexplained effects, such as mental telepathy, remote viewing, clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition, and communication with the dead, to name just a few varieties. Bem’s paper focuses on precognition, which is unexplained knowledge of the future, and premonition, which is the same thing only felt emotionally instead of known intellectually.<br /><br />The paper reports nine experiments, only 4 in any detail, that were conducted over a decade, with a thousand people tested. In a typical experiment, participants make a prediction about where a picture, (called the “stimulus”) will appear on a computer screen. If the prediction is correct, then either it was a lucky guess or, the person had a premonition of where the stimulus was going to be. In a typical experiment, participants had to guess whether the picture would appear on the left or right side of a computer screen. Random guessing would produce a 50% correct rate, but the guesses were correct 53% of the time, a percentage greater than chance. That doesn’t seem like much of a difference, but since the test was run many times on each person, the finding is statistically rare enough that it is probably meaningful. Therefore, according to Bem, a slight, but scientifically proven result of precognition, or premonition of the future, was demonstrated.<br /><br />Bem notes in his paper that “Psi is a controversial subject, and most academic psychologists do not believe that psi phenomena are likely to exist.” That is correct, and I am one of those psychologists. I do not believe any psi phenomena have ever been demonstrated scientifically, nor indeed that they exist at all. How do I explain then, scientific findings such as Bem’s (and there have been many such supposed demonstrations of psi phenomena over the years)? There are four obstacles to acceptance that any such scientific demonstration must overcome:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZQCoGIJoOadotM_vnI3mzF0pxM45ygSY9EkZXZs-0iIumGNUond90pGsJOJ3XwyXEH3jchMteaZilQ1RvRmmUYbuJ5Jd32bIJsbcKJug2N2YY29guwCq3ycH7-X1bQvbDo6X/s1600/Psychic.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZQCoGIJoOadotM_vnI3mzF0pxM45ygSY9EkZXZs-0iIumGNUond90pGsJOJ3XwyXEH3jchMteaZilQ1RvRmmUYbuJ5Jd32bIJsbcKJug2N2YY29guwCq3ycH7-X1bQvbDo6X/s320/Psychic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944870263399026" border="0" /></a>Methodology. . The experiment must be designed and conducted in such a way that the best, most reasonable conclusion is that psi phenomena have been demonstrated, rather than some other explanation, such as pure chance, lurking (uncontrolled) variables, equipment or procedural error, biased sampling, unintended clues being given to participants, inadequate experimental controls, or other kinds of unintended bias or error (deliberate fraud is not considered, as that is rare and easy to detect).<br /><br />2. Statistical. The experimental data must be conceptualized, analyzed and reported in a simple, correct, and non-controversial way, so that the best, most reasonable conclusion is that psi phenomena have been demonstrated. Even if the experimental procedure was sound, the statistical handling of the data can introduce biases that lead to invalid conclusions, such as when the data are manipulated inappropriately (e.g., leaving out some data from the analysis), or conceptualized strangely (such as counting certain results in one way, other results in another), or analyzed with controversial or questionable statistical techniques, or interpreting the outcome in obscure or inappropriate ways.<br /><br />3. Theoretical. The findings must be coherent with an existing body of scientific data, or if they are not, some revision in understanding of the existing data must be specified which accommodates the new, anomalous finding. There are two reasons for this requirement.<br /><br />One is that according to the scientific method (a consensus model of scientific reasoning), the hypothesis that an experiment tests is drawn from the existing body of scientific data. A scientist does not just wake up one morning with a hypothesis that says, “I suspect that giraffes would float in water as well as raspberry marshmallows.” That is not how science is done. Instead, the scientist finds areas in the existing body of scientific knowledge where there are questions, errors, gaps, unexplained connections, or incomplete understanding. A hypothesis is then generated that could extend the existing knowledge or make it more understandable or more internally consistent.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFRkK4Mnzs08tpceOEzh4mL4r9vPhMpdCn92K0ZtaN3jDKPwFQfN0OGbFZaoOc9KshptiXvbLqsqlYEqV45emhYJvWmjnKovM3KIxw95Dm3dQGjvqTnHitla541WovH3XbsG1/s1600/images.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 231px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFRkK4Mnzs08tpceOEzh4mL4r9vPhMpdCn92K0ZtaN3jDKPwFQfN0OGbFZaoOc9KshptiXvbLqsqlYEqV45emhYJvWmjnKovM3KIxw95Dm3dQGjvqTnHitla541WovH3XbsG1/s320/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944498809768866" border="0" /></a>The second reason for requiring that scientific findings must mesh with existing knowledge is that science is a cumulative exercise in knowledge production. Even if some arbitrary and idiosyncratic hypothesis were experimentally tested and confirmed, the result would be uninterpretable because it would not connect to existing knowledge, would not further general understanding, and would not even contradict what is already known. There would be no context for making sense of the experimental result, making it essentially meaningless, no matter what it purports to demonstrate.<br /><br />Historically, strange things have sometimes been found in nature that could not be explained until much later, such as lightning or x-rays. But technically, those discoveries were anomalous observations, not scientific findings, until some explanation was hypothesized that could be tested under a scientific hypothesis.<br /><br />4. Philosophical. A scientific finding that meets all of the foregoing requirements still must be interpreted in a scientific way. For example, a finding that concludes, “All human beings are therefore merely ideas in the mind of God,” cannot be accepted without a great deal of further explanation. The interpretation of the finding must conform to principles of scientific reasoning and evidence. This examples fails on both counts, because there is no scientific evidence of God, and to characterize humans as ideas rather than as biological objects is not consistent with scientific reasoning.<br /><br />Alternatively, the interpretation of the finding can go too far in the other direction, being so scientifically overspecified that the result admits of no generalization, an error of “external validity.” An example would be an experiment that claims to study “violence in children” but defines violence as a high frequency of button presses on laboratory equipment. Since that does not describe what we normally understand as violent behavior, even if the study meets all other criteria, we are unable to say anything about the result beyond the specific experimental procedure.<br /><br />Another common error is that an study defines its variables in terms of laboratory procedures, but interprets its results in different terms, an error of “internal validity.” In the example above, if college students were used as participants, it is not valid to conclude anything about violence in children.<br /><br />Bem’s studies that purport to demonstrate psi phenomena fail to overcome any of the obstacles described, and therefore I remain unconvinced of the existence of so-called psi-phenomena.<br /><br />To prove this definitively, I would have to study the experimental protocol, data, and statistics to make detailed criticisms, and that would require either that I have access to Bem’s laboratory notebooks, which is not going to happen, or I would have to repeat his experiments, step by step, in order to understand what he did and what kind of data he obtained. That is also not going to happen. So, like any other ordinary consumer of scientific information, I must base my acceptance of, or criticism of the experiments based only on the scant information provided. Here are some criticisms then, within that constraint.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Summary of Bem’s Experiment 1</span><br /><br />1. Methodological factors. In Experiment 1, a featured experiment supposedly demonstrating precognition, participants had to guess which of several pictures would be randomly shown. I’ll start by summarizing the experimental procedure.<br /><br />One hundred Cornell undergraduates were self-selected (volunteer) participants, half men, half women and were paid for their participation. They all knew it was an experiment in ESP.<br /><br />A picture of starry skies was shown on the screen for three minutes, while new-age music played. Then that picture was replaced (and presumably the music terminated, although that is not stated), with two pictures of curtains, presumably side-by-side (although that is not stated). When a participant clicked on one of the pictures of a curtain, it was replaced with another picture, either a picture of a wall, or a picture of something other than a wall.<br /><br />The content of the “other than a wall” pictures is not described, except to say that 12 of the 36 non-wall pictures showed humans (presumably – this is not specified) engaging in “sexually explicit acts” (not further described), while another 12 of the non-wall pictures were “negative” in emotionality (not further described), and the final 12 non-wall pictures were “neutral” (but not described).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggaIg4CUkfNuLeLzfVpLdFU1tgCuzry_gtiw6jsf7kTAizugEZgdJYZ06tD5zk6BMptpjRvH9F-EaUpSVSfNdmxOh3PvqxuQT6wBkdDCSchE6q31cOcz-BlNzN5X160cmH-k-5/s1600/Zener.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggaIg4CUkfNuLeLzfVpLdFU1tgCuzry_gtiw6jsf7kTAizugEZgdJYZ06tD5zk6BMptpjRvH9F-EaUpSVSfNdmxOh3PvqxuQT6wBkdDCSchE6q31cOcz-BlNzN5X160cmH-k-5/s320/Zener.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944493948074242" border="0" /></a>All these pictures had previously been (although when, is not stated) rated by other people not in this experiment as being reliably “arousing” for males and females (although “arousability is not defined), or as being reliably “emotional.” There is no information about whether any arousing pictures were also emotional, and it is hard to imagine that they were not. There is no definition of what constituted a “neutral” photograph, and there is no description of the arousability or emotionality of the wall picture or of the curtain pictures.<br /><br />Part way through the experiment, some or all (not specified) of the “arousing” pictures were replaced by more intense (not otherwise described) internet pornography pictures, which were not reported to be scientifically rated for arousability and emotionality, so in the end, the nature of these pictorial stimuli is essentially unknown. (We assume that among the 36 non-wall photographs, none of them was in fact, of a different sort of wall, although this is not actually stated.).<br /><br />The non-wall pictures were selected at random from the group of 36, with randomness defined by a software algorithm. Whether the wall or non-wall picture was placed on the left or the right of the screen was also randomized by the computer.<br /><br />Each participant’s task was to click on one of the two pictures of curtains to indicate which one they thought would be replaced by a non-wall photograph. They were told that some of the pictures were sexually explicit and allowed to quit the experiment if that was objectionable. No information is given on how many participants quit. After the participant’s choice was made, the curtain picture was replaced by another picture, either of a wall or a picture of non-wall content.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Errors of Internal Validity</span><br /><br />That summarizes the experimental protocol. According to Bem, this methodology made “the procedure a test of detecting a future event, that is, a test of precognition” (p. 9). However, that is not how the results were recorded. You would think that the scientist would simply record whether or not the participant had correctly predicted which side of the screen the non-wall picture had appear on (since that was the instruction given to the participant, and that was the hypothesis to be tested). Instead some other, strange measure was recorded, namely, the number of correct predictions of which side of the screen the “erotic” (meaning sexually explicit) pictures occurred, even though that was not the hypothesis being tested. This odd recording of the results constitutes an error of internal validity.<br /><br />The hypothesis that college students will be better at predicting the location of a sexually explicit picture is unconnected to the introductory literature review, which referred only to a previous body of findings that asked for straightforward predictions of visual content, with no special reference to sexually explicit material. This new (implicit) hypothesis is then, essentially like the “giraffe and marshmallow” hypothesis, arising “out of the blue” rather than being logically derived from existing knowledge. This is another methodological error. If there is, in fact, a previous body of knowledge about predicting the locations of sexually explicit photographs, then the error is one of scientific reporting, since the literature review was obviously grossly incomplete.<br /><br />One other, rather minor error, is the experimenter’s referring to the participants’ prediction of the location of a non-wall photograph as a “response” to that photograph. But this is a semantic distortion, since the participant’s choice is made before the photograph is shown. Ordinary, common-sense language would call that choice a “prediction” not a “response.” For the experimenter to call it a “response,” presupposes the validity of his belief that the participants are seeing into the future, but until that is proven by the experimental results, it is scientifically inappropriate to use the language in a non-standard way without justification.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Statistical Errors</span><br />Next, Bem reports that participants correctly predicted the position of the sexually<br />pictures significantly more frequently than the 50% rate expected by chance, and in fact were correct 53.1% of the time. But this is an incorrect analysis. To be counted as correct, a prediction would have to correctly say on which side of the screen a non-wall photograph would appear (one chance out of two, or 50% chance rated) AND, if that guess were correct, they would also have to predict that it was a sexually explicit photograph (12 chances out of 36, or 33%) for an overall probability of 0.50 x 0.33 = 0.165, which means that one would expect a person to guess correctly fewer than 17 times out of a hundred.<br /><br />Did that happen? No information is reported on how many times the participants DID actually predict the location of sexually explicit photographs. It was not 53.1%. That is the number you get when you ignore, or leave out of the calculation, all the wrong predictions of the non-wall photograph. But that is an illegitimate way to count the results, unless there is a very good reason, and none is given.<br /><br />Still, can we at least say that the participants correctly predicted the location of ANY non-wall photograph better than chance (53.1% vs. 50%)? No we can’t, because that information is not reported either. Instead, what is reported, is that participants predicted the location of only the sexually explicit photographs at 53.1%. But that leaves out all the results for the non-sexual predictions, which is not a legitimate way to count the results. So in the end, the results that bear on the experiment’s stated hypothesis are not reported at all.<br /><br />This kind of anomalous counting of the results constitutes a statistical error and makes the experimental findings uninterpretable.<br /><br />The same kind of anomalous, illegitimate, and uninterpretable counting of results is given for non-sexually-explicit pictures, emotional pictures, and neutral pictures, and even for pictures that were “romantic but non-erotic pictures,” a category that was never defined in the description of the pictures (let alone in any experimental hypotheses).<br /><br />The experiment also reports that there were no significant differences in response findings between males and females. That is a legitimate “control variable” to be reporting, although the experimental hypothesis being tested has nothing to do with gender. So that is not an error, as much as an irrelevance.<br /><br />Then the experiment reports on a history of findings in other experiments that turns up a small correlation between the ability to predict the occurrence of visual materials at a rate greater than chance, and the participant’s score on an extraversion test, with extraverts supposedly being better at making such predictions over introverts. There are two problems with this so-called result.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yGvWjLV4na0UuHulHsgu9X8GpID8zq1cDTvnneKicP0R0q-fstyMc-POOYL48ljsQKiw-vYpZtgrTeN-zTmWteBWYb_KUWMuqUh5G4lXMSdBMy-gwv1atFadmFJ9aIAaRdCs/s1600/image507395g.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yGvWjLV4na0UuHulHsgu9X8GpID8zq1cDTvnneKicP0R0q-fstyMc-POOYL48ljsQKiw-vYpZtgrTeN-zTmWteBWYb_KUWMuqUh5G4lXMSdBMy-gwv1atFadmFJ9aIAaRdCs/s320/image507395g.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944867676889778" border="0" /></a>One, is that it is based on a statistical technique called meta-analysis, in which the main findings of individual experiments are treated as if they were individual response data points observed in individual participants. While this statistical technique is now widely used in the medical literature, it is by no means without controversy when applied to psychological experiments, and I reject it as a valid statistical technique for psychology. <br /><br />The main reason for my rejection is that the technique generally does not take into account the quality of the underlying experiments, or if it does, does so inadequately. For example, if some future meta-analysis includes this experiment, that will introduce significant undocumented error into the meta-analysis because this experiment does not actually report any valid results, despite its claim to the contrary.<br /><br />The second problem with this so-called reported result between predictive success and personality is that it is irrelevant to any scientific hypothesis, implicit or explicit, that was supposed to be tested by this experiment.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Errors of Interpretation:</span><br />The experimental report goes on at great length to determine what “kind” of psi phenomenon had been demonstrated by the test results (which were never properly reported). Was it simple clairvoyance or was it a subtle form of psychokinesis? Or was it actually pure chance (admirably, the report does consider that possibility).<br /><br />But a simpler explanation is hinted at by the experimental procedure itself. After the participant made his or her prediction of where the non-wall photograph would appear, the curtain picture chosen was replaced with either the wall, or a non-wall photograph. This essentially gave the participant feedback on the correctness or non-correctness of the prediction. But why was that necessary or desirable?<br /><br />The experimenter knew immediately upon the participant’s click whether the prediction was correct or not. That could be scored right on the spot by the computer. Why was it important to give the participant “feedback?” The experimental hypothesis was about ability to see into the future, precognition. Why is feedback necessary to do that? Was the hypothesis really that ability to predict the future can be taught by a computer and learned with practice? There is no theoretical or practical reason to believe so, and the experimental report does not suggest it.<br /><br />The only reason I can think of to give the participants feedback on the correctness of their predictions is so that they might be able to learn from their mistakes and improve their performance. That is a standard learning procedure going back over a hundred and fifty years in experimental psychology and thousands of years in human experience. The experiment thus introduced a spurious learning paradigm into a procedure that was supposed to test only ability to predict the future. That is a serious error of internal validity that renders the experiment uninterpretable (if it was not already).<br /><br />What would the participants be learning, with this embedded learning procedure? I am unable to say without more detail about the experiment. Could they be learning (even if only implicitly) to detect a non-random pattern in the order of presentation of the materials? A non-random pattern could have emerged. Either the random number generator could have been imperfect (since there is, theoretically, no such thing as a perfect random number generator), or, within the pseudo-random sequence of events, an identifiable non-random pattern could have emerged, just as when one flips a fair coin “heads” 7 or 8 times in a row, just by chance. These things happen. It wouldn’t take much non-randomness to produce a mere 3% deviation from chance expectations.<br /><br />Or, more likely in my opinion, the participants could have been learning something else, some other clue that was unintentionally left in the procedure by the experimenters. I cannot say what that might be. For example, it would be interesting to know if an experimenter was in the room while the participant performed. There is no reason why one should have been, but if one was, there are all kinds of opportunities for subtle, unintended clues (or “experimenter effects”) to be transmitted to the participants.<br /><br />Bem reports that he re-ran the experiment but using randomized, simulated computer inputs for the “predictions,” with no human participants involved. Under those conditions, no psi effects were detected. I am not surprised, but that result furthers my skepticism about the human-based findings: that if there really were any legitimate ones (which I doubt), they were due entirely to unintended experimenter effects or performance biases.<br /><br />The only way to satisfy my skepticism on this point would be to re-run the experiment, with humans, but omitting the spurious learning component from the procedure, and isolating the participant completely from any contact with the experimenter or any other participant. I would be extremely surprised if any so-called “psi effect” were reported under those conditions.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Theoretical and Philosophical Errors:</span><br />Aside from the methodological and statistical problems with this study, there are additional theoretical and philosophical problems. First, I must emphasize again that no psi phenomena were demonstrated by any of these experiments, as reported. But even if there were such a thing as psi phenomena, for example, ability to predict the future at a rate better than chance, what sense would it make? <br /><br />There is no known mechanism, either biological, physical, or psychological, by which that would be possible. Human beings are simply not able to predict the future very well. Would that it were otherwise! Bem does some hand-waving around quantum indeterminacy and the earth’s magnetic field to suggest possible explanations of psi phenomena (if they existed), but that verbiage constitutes, most generously, only loose metaphor, nothing close to an explanation.<br /><br />Could the explanation of psi effects, if there were any, just turn out to be something bizarre, something we have never thought of yet, not related to anything familiar, not like anything ever reported in the accepted scientific literature? Well, yes, that is possible in principle. I’m sure Socrates himself would not have been able to understand a butane lighter or a sheet of plastic food wrap, let alone some of our more complex technological marvels. So it is not a denial of the <span style="font-style: italic;">possibility </span>of psi phenomena to assert that there is presently no conceivable explanation of them, as they have been described. But it is utterly idle to speculate on explanations until the phenomenon to be explained has been demonstrated, and I am not convinced it ever has been.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5Sq3ZsLsnWY_XjKdMWSbpnAeOPSy6SQ98mlqokhWPtEn_5yVNLt99mACM6c9G6PkiqX5HmO-Gu5FHMjyflwjPAVj0sWwN6mfJFHXspd-DEqTbTEmf0B4oY4_9wSE49zZ6UFV/s1600/openmind-300x300.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 174px; height: 174px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5Sq3ZsLsnWY_XjKdMWSbpnAeOPSy6SQ98mlqokhWPtEn_5yVNLt99mACM6c9G6PkiqX5HmO-Gu5FHMjyflwjPAVj0sWwN6mfJFHXspd-DEqTbTEmf0B4oY4_9wSE49zZ6UFV/s320/openmind-300x300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559944874584462258" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusion:</span><br />In his forthcoming paper, Bem describes three additional experiments, similar to the first one, in some detail, and refers to five others, not fully described. However, as is always the case when I take the trouble to read such experimental reports, after analysis of the first one (an analysis that was by no means exhaustive), I simply have no energy to go on to the rest of them. The quality of the first one is so poor that there is little promise that the others will be much better. So I give up at this point and return to my default belief, that has not been challenged by Bem or anybody else, that no psi phenomenon has ever been scientifically demonstrated. Show me a proper demonstration and I’ll change my mind.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-82966933160859299882010-05-02T17:28:00.001-07:002010-05-02T17:53:16.209-07:00What is the purpose of the cerebral cortex?<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Zwt8hRRLZ3Ju1pVo2KNNPSrNWHAPrKGd9mPGKWehEFqBCjBlUqE6E5FD05BYDfZwMXCvw_q3EU-KOAnY03_qf-Pnj3QsghmwSa6wVqrylCLl5ytrd2TXbclcpi-C3bYCttFR/s1600/250px-Cerebral_Cortex_location.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 167px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Zwt8hRRLZ3Ju1pVo2KNNPSrNWHAPrKGd9mPGKWehEFqBCjBlUqE6E5FD05BYDfZwMXCvw_q3EU-KOAnY03_qf-Pnj3QsghmwSa6wVqrylCLl5ytrd2TXbclcpi-C3bYCttFR/s320/250px-Cerebral_Cortex_location.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466834309076665138" border="0" /></a>The main part of the human brain is the cerebrum, the big piece of folded, wrinkly meat that covers the older, more primitive “snake brain” or limbic system and brainstem. Different areas of the cerebrum support different cognitive and bodily functions. In nearly all mammals, the brain has an extremely thin (no more than two-tenths of an inch thick) wrapper around it made up of neurons, and that is the cerebral cortex (“cortex” comes from the Latin for “cap.”). The cortex, thin though it is, actually is made of even thinner layers of cells, up to six distinct layers of so-called gray matter. While there are connections in and out of the cortex to the cerebrum underneath, more than 99% of cortical activity takes place strictly within the cortex alone.<br /><br />Most animals do not have a cerebral cortex. Only mammals do, and among mammals, the human version is the largest and most complex. If billions of animals get along just fine without a cerebral cortex, it raises the question, what is it for? That is a mystery.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0Hjde0ZgYEeCRi3ew92Q3iyy0GGtR39TvaLJ4L2OUkUzvvtMQNsgaKvZGfkaMwMZ3v-0VzybVzM9PxbBNRBDLRJaPSP5wUPbEolknIdXHUJFoSeAMmktL6jU6nzKd918KoFx/s1600/cerebral-cortex.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0Hjde0ZgYEeCRi3ew92Q3iyy0GGtR39TvaLJ4L2OUkUzvvtMQNsgaKvZGfkaMwMZ3v-0VzybVzM9PxbBNRBDLRJaPSP5wUPbEolknIdXHUJFoSeAMmktL6jU6nzKd918KoFx/s320/cerebral-cortex.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466836928389848834" border="0" /></a>We know that sensory signals coming from the receptors eventually end up in the cortex. Visual data, for example, ends up at the back of the head in the so-called visual cortex. What it does there, we do not know. And we know that parts of the cortex send signals out to the muscles, presumably as part of coordinated actions. But what about the 99% of a cortex’s activity that goes on within the cortex itself? What is that about?<br /><br />We don’t know what the function of the cortex is, but scientists believe, based on observations of people with brain damage, and on animal studies, that somehow, activity in the cerebral cortex produces meaningful experience of the world, and also, somehow, abstract thinking, planning and language. How that could be possible is a mystery, but that seems to be what is going on.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RD0ASkTuxQY0Y2vakt1iGC9MtPJjAkVHZDDWaRUMyc2EW15SJ5pKQMEoPnKc9PAf7zAjAoa1W8gpqfVfssGam9kSqyVtVQ94fKwlcKfAO1cq0TjA51R6mrVs46lMNZ9L9idW/s1600/waterwheel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 274px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RD0ASkTuxQY0Y2vakt1iGC9MtPJjAkVHZDDWaRUMyc2EW15SJ5pKQMEoPnKc9PAf7zAjAoa1W8gpqfVfssGam9kSqyVtVQ94fKwlcKfAO1cq0TjA51R6mrVs46lMNZ9L9idW/s320/waterwheel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466837610260529202" border="0" /></a>What’s the great mystery? The mystery is that we don’t know how a physical organ like the cortex could produce mental functions like thinking, planning, and language understanding. According to the principles of science, it is not actually possible. No physical activity can produce any nonphysical effect (energy is “physical”) like a thought. Why not? Because if it did, that would violate the law of conservation of matter and energy (and many other laws of nature besides), and if that can happen, well, then we don’t know anything about anything.<br /><br />E=MC2 is only true because of the law of conservation of matter and energy, for example. Violate that law and you have nothing.<br /><br />And it’s not just a matter of preserving the integrity of science’s precious little formulas. We can’t even conceive of how a physical thing like a group of neuron, which are just protein, fat, and a few chemicals, could cause or create something as intangible as an abstract thought or even the experience of color. How would that work ? It would have to be magic. We can’t think of any example of any machine, no matter how complex or fantastic, that could do such a thing.<br /><br />Some scientists have become so frustrated with this problem that they have just declared that thoughts, experiences, and other intangible mental phenomena do not exist, except as illusions. But that is just crazy talk. Even an “illusion” is a mental phenomenon.<br /><br />Despite this impenetrable mystery, we still want to ask, what is the cortex for and why do we have one, because its occurrence is quite rare in evolution.<br /><br />1. Does the cortex produce or create the conscious mind in some way? That is scientifically impossible and even unintelligible, for reasons just described. Parts of the cortex are proven to be correlated with aspects of the conscious mind, but we cannot explain that correlation.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGN0XLpUd-HP6xxB7R4AVIFYZXpWRD-bq6_9-e0cshTbXDcP2xImSaLXFk4y3QPezTdKLrO5IM9-1fX33KB134lt4n-wDz-jEN-86lHtWOcQJ7g4irk5UKzA6HEwiePReTnrjt/s1600/morot+homunculus.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 253px; height: 173px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGN0XLpUd-HP6xxB7R4AVIFYZXpWRD-bq6_9-e0cshTbXDcP2xImSaLXFk4y3QPezTdKLrO5IM9-1fX33KB134lt4n-wDz-jEN-86lHtWOcQJ7g4irk5UKzA6HEwiePReTnrjt/s320/morot+homunculus.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466838424309505682" border="0" /></a>2. Does the cortex create and store a map of the whole body, including its history and modifications? Some scientists think so (e.g., Antonio Damasio). That would require an awful lot of capacity, since the body has a lot of parts and a very long history. Still, it might be possible. But what good would it do to have such a map? Who would look at it? There is no little man in the head.<br /><br />3. Could the cortex have/be historical record of bodily connections as suggested above, not used as a map, but rather, as some kind of a switchboard, so that signals incoming to the brain get routed to the correct output action signals? That seems highly implausible to me, since there are an infinite number of possible combinations and sequences of sensory information that one encounters every day and just as large a number of movements that could be made in response. The brain is very large and complex, but it is not infinite in capacity, and the cortex is, after all, only 4 millimeters thick. Also, such a “switchboard” or “blackboard” hypothesis does not allow any scope for creative action, if every input is wired to an output or even to a selection of outputs. Some scientists deny that there is any such thing as creativity, but I am quite sure they are wrong.<br /><br />4. Here is my hypothesis about what the cortex is for. I think it supports intersubjective social life. Intersubjectivity is a kind of empathy that allows humans to understand each other, and that’s what is necessary to have complex civilization like ours. Without empathy, there could be no poetry, no arts of any kind, no jurisprudence, no government, no sports, no teaching and learning, not even symbolic language.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM080w8cPqcRuSfwWucCD_T9wQP89AuMTC3m1PcLiEKNvBc2_w-qHKDjPOXDEos2WlWuMoZ75IBQ1K_QGqrI4TmWqLFLiAvwGpwKmoxUlLgv8pjM9_Lc-lrjUg843ali_W3pFq/s1600/UnderstandingYourCat.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM080w8cPqcRuSfwWucCD_T9wQP89AuMTC3m1PcLiEKNvBc2_w-qHKDjPOXDEos2WlWuMoZ75IBQ1K_QGqrI4TmWqLFLiAvwGpwKmoxUlLgv8pjM9_Lc-lrjUg843ali_W3pFq/s320/UnderstandingYourCat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466838656728158658" border="0" /></a>Since we are the only species that indulges such things with such intensity, it makes sense that we have the most developed cerebral cortex. Chimps have societies and maybe elephants grieve over their dead. Most mammals have a cerebral cortex and so most are intersubjective to some degree. But no other mammals use symbolic language or have courts of law or try to entertain each other. We are the only ones with a hyper-developed cortex.<br /><br />How would it work? It has been proven that the brain does physically change in response to learning and adaptation. So it is plausible to imagine that the cortex is a matrix for social learning. It stores all the intermediate states on the long social journey each one of us takes from infancy to adulthood and on to the grave.<br /><br />The cortex does not store individual experiences as you would store marbles in a bag, but it would store developing subsystems. You need some kind of storage to accumulate and integrate experience over time, experience like complex social understanding; like intersubjective social learning. It is the skills of social mind-reading that are accumulated and integrated and refined in the cerebral cortex.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA91NN0bJ24LkxmFBtCairmEGuiaj1jdtyeHhnOo4NbPAEFIvzeRchUCD1p_i8z3BucxmCB9spRRtVjjm9l5lbvsFyA8tmFFnNL3nklaCLeCTq-iomKwlxQhwtj58JaMjB8Ma-/s1600/cooperation.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 257px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA91NN0bJ24LkxmFBtCairmEGuiaj1jdtyeHhnOo4NbPAEFIvzeRchUCD1p_i8z3BucxmCB9spRRtVjjm9l5lbvsFyA8tmFFnNL3nklaCLeCTq-iomKwlxQhwtj58JaMjB8Ma-/s320/cooperation.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466838849690823986" border="0" /></a>Those cortical representations of complex social understandings are not retrieved, as from a file (because there is nobody to read such a file anyway). Rather the representations are the basis for creatively responding to new social situations. They form the basis for creative projection beyond what is known, to what might be, and at the same time, they constrain creativity to what is feasible and acceptable within the social community. So each time a new situation comes up (and every situation is new in some way), you do not need to start from square one. You start your response from what you already have in the vast network of your cerebral cortex and creatively project something from that.<br /><br />Where does that creative urge or impetus come from? I don’t know. That’s the magic part.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-29911236478843198452009-11-01T11:12:00.000-08:002010-01-06T08:11:18.391-08:00New Look at Dream Interpretation<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYDwvCbUdWMjSKIhZwMmMz8oaBco_5wiLc2AndIcrofTMejlE5HlptFVSivuCQbq4SrGe5y02082YTFtlL88BrP03uf0Dzm0lHRE_H_CSuSHy-gPakC7zyrNzzm7oKoNXyuvX4/s1600-h/music-notes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 189px; height: 202px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYDwvCbUdWMjSKIhZwMmMz8oaBco_5wiLc2AndIcrofTMejlE5HlptFVSivuCQbq4SrGe5y02082YTFtlL88BrP03uf0Dzm0lHRE_H_CSuSHy-gPakC7zyrNzzm7oKoNXyuvX4/s320/music-notes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399221143461763074" border="0" /></a>I had a waking up dream that involved an assemblage of musical notations: black quarter notes, in three dimensions. They were intertwined as the twigs in a bird’s nest to make structures such as a straight-backed wooden chair.<br /><br />I realized I had seen these things before including the chair-like structure. It had been the previous night during a falling asleep dream, while listening to quiet jazz on the radio. I did not hear music, but in the dream I examined the note structures as if they were perfectly reasonable objects that one might study scientifically.<br /><br />This sequence of two dreams reveals some interesting points about the nature of dreams and their interpretation:<br /><br />1. Usually when you recall a dream, the things you dreamed about are bizarre, and you realize your thought processes were bizarre because you accepted the bizarre goings-on of the dream as a real reality.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6rzsXCbooE7HxU2DZB5cWOcRNImktpjHaWyZwcjrn4wbBP1G5N-1LFHMN2_2-ljzOP12YafJd3TFUt_zx1ywS-ggEu2iqcp-2DQWgtFA2tRkZrUsWeZ2j54v2PmzpiDITqcGy/s1600-h/red-flying-horse-pegasus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 173px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6rzsXCbooE7HxU2DZB5cWOcRNImktpjHaWyZwcjrn4wbBP1G5N-1LFHMN2_2-ljzOP12YafJd3TFUt_zx1ywS-ggEu2iqcp-2DQWgtFA2tRkZrUsWeZ2j54v2PmzpiDITqcGy/s320/red-flying-horse-pegasus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399221277736385010" border="0" /></a>In a lucid dream (in which you are aware that you are dreaming), you might think, “How odd, horses normally cannot fly,” but you accept that <span style="font-weight: bold;">this </span>dream horse can. So your consciousness, though more lucid, is still delusional.<br /><br />If you recalled a dream that was completely reasonable, you would not call it a dream, you would call it a thought. You would just be remembering a thought that you had.<br /><br />2. Dreams cannot be turned on and off like imagination. Once you are “awake” in reality mode, that is the grounding for other variations in mental state. But if you return to dreaming, you must give up your wakeful reality testing. You can’t voluntarily suspend all reality-testing and remain awake. Dreams and wakefulness are thus as incompatible as oil and water.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfuAWlBrMNF3AnpyzY2eY9D7JZXGiTbZhJqSYe224sdEZ_frD8pjFRIU7QPKJDgfe588SrjBhuv05bYXRfQVGngfEAhYBeEV53-lw1BNyoiOld4gXpCGeBlBckPknA9Vb0eAx/s1600-h/butterfly_watching.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 176px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfuAWlBrMNF3AnpyzY2eY9D7JZXGiTbZhJqSYe224sdEZ_frD8pjFRIU7QPKJDgfe588SrjBhuv05bYXRfQVGngfEAhYBeEV53-lw1BNyoiOld4gXpCGeBlBckPknA9Vb0eAx/s320/butterfly_watching.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399221797063374162" border="0" /></a>3. Dreams are identified in retrospect, from the point of view of awake consciousness, and from which all conversation and communication flow. In a dream, the dream is the reality. There is no other point of view from which to critique that reality.<br /><br />I am not worried that I might actually be a butterfly dreaming I am a person because wakeful consciousness is known to itself. Dream consciousness is not. (In lucid dreaming, only the lucid consciousness is known to itself.)<br /><br />Within a dream, there is no question about the reality status of the experience, because literally that question does not come up. Reality testing is only a question that can be raised from the point of view of lucid consciousness. So if you dream you are a butterfly, you <span style="font-weight: bold;">are</span> a butterfly within the context of that dream, because there is no other context from which to question that reality. Only later, when awake and lucid, can you say, “Man, that was crazy!”<br /><br />I had a dream of a straight-backed chair made out of giant, three-dimensional quarter notes. Within the dream, that was real, by definition. But in what way was it real?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lBIn4_gWDR1kPV7v9DB_q6RPB3veAwV4YAZlcrnU_ujiPLzYhE7t-lGdWCZR1p2mgKOEqo9zSkuILynDn1Wmx_d2Wy6yrBVM76riO7Axci6xpgoV85GKCgCkr9z8-n2dHTa9/s1600-h/Quarter+note+3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 61px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lBIn4_gWDR1kPV7v9DB_q6RPB3veAwV4YAZlcrnU_ujiPLzYhE7t-lGdWCZR1p2mgKOEqo9zSkuILynDn1Wmx_d2Wy6yrBVM76riO7Axci6xpgoV85GKCgCkr9z8-n2dHTa9/s320/Quarter+note+3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399223884205094114" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1eQKlyZFiCVjYzwEh6Jl-Oo9oDcIegJaKYY8F2dOXf2TJ3Nv-HZGt4aI-IqwXqmuzU2bgW-CDAHXKOxApCHFQHLTrmHlxg-ohwWNKybqw0efxxYH_pqMoRRUDXOIw2Ob24G9/s1600-h/neuron_parts.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 118px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1eQKlyZFiCVjYzwEh6Jl-Oo9oDcIegJaKYY8F2dOXf2TJ3Nv-HZGt4aI-IqwXqmuzU2bgW-CDAHXKOxApCHFQHLTrmHlxg-ohwWNKybqw0efxxYH_pqMoRRUDXOIw2Ob24G9/s320/neuron_parts.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399222473908280818" border="0" /></a>4. What if dream images corresponded to activation of certain brain structures? A quarter note has a shape not entirely dissimilar from that of a neuron. A networked cluster of quarter notes would not be too different from a cluster of neurons. If the dream images were in some way shadows of actual brain structures, that could be one sense in which the dream structures were real.<br /><br />But what kind of a “shadow” of the brain could the dream structures be? There is no known or even imagined causal linkage between brain physiology and mentality. We know there is a correlation, but we have no idea what kind of relationship it is. From the Penfield and Roberts (1959) studies we learned that electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex in a live, conscious human was followed by spontaneous reports of episodic memories of extraordinary vividness, but we cannot explain that association.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dgnAnPmtGHdOih6WV6qvvMKbye2PSIupPNDNUsLMCX5nADNfQih-hVr7-YV2TCJM9lDUaLGn7jJASjCnZXQZQ3-3GcQZ8iBVuyJgJb77ZCpoGm8egfKqbj_c2Vdta3CpaHtC/s1600-h/fractal21.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 228px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dgnAnPmtGHdOih6WV6qvvMKbye2PSIupPNDNUsLMCX5nADNfQih-hVr7-YV2TCJM9lDUaLGn7jJASjCnZXQZQ3-3GcQZ8iBVuyJgJb77ZCpoGm8egfKqbj_c2Vdta3CpaHtC/s320/fractal21.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399229906209065426" border="0" /></a>There is no way, according to the laws of physics, for a change in a brain neuron to cause a mental experience. If that were to happen, it would violate the law of conservation of energy because memory is non-physical. Memory cannot be measured in space and time. It has no no width, no mass, no volume; it conducts no electricity and absorbs no light. Memory does not meet criteria for physicality.<br /><br />To insist that memory is actually a physical circuit in the brain, is to say that electrical stimulation of one part of the brain causes neurological activity in another part of the brain. We would then have no use for the term “memory” since it would not refer to anything. So if we are going to use the term “memory”, it refers to the nonphysical mental phenomenon. How a brain circuit is related to a memory, exactly, is an unsolved mystery.<br /><br />5. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYERJKV23VGRd-St2Y_5I__xTdhEUFFFHIkazA7GzXTnlE7VMgYF-ZhfeV6AEkaOGcbghZb1e7wNc7AYZ_uCquTdrR9Hr2e_tSyP1MvnvahRCVwR2IckYhxCSWVqMeREWH6D6u/s1600-h/motorcortex.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 280px; height: 209px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYERJKV23VGRd-St2Y_5I__xTdhEUFFFHIkazA7GzXTnlE7VMgYF-ZhfeV6AEkaOGcbghZb1e7wNc7AYZ_uCquTdrR9Hr2e_tSyP1MvnvahRCVwR2IckYhxCSWVqMeREWH6D6u/s320/motorcortex.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399224259510793858" border="0" /></a>What are we aware of when we have a toothache? We experience a mental state we have learned to call “pain.” I hypothesize that the mental state is correlated to activation of a network of brain cells that include some neurons in the somatosensory cortex, which is what enables us to locate the pain in the mouth and not the toes, for example. If true, we can say that the mental experience of toothache is a “reading” of a certain brain state, in the same way that the mental experience of having a full bladder is a “reading” of a different neurological condition of the body.<br /><br />In a similar way then, the dream of the quarter-note chair was a mental reading of a certain brain condition, albeit not one that is readily interpreted as some condition of the body.<br /><br />Under this interpretation, one can speculate that the quarter note chair might have been a mental conceptualization of activity in the right temporal cortex, which is active when we hear music. Since I was listening to music before the first dream, that is a plausible assumption. The dream could have been my mental “reading” of residual brain activity.<br /><br />6. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk46DagA2A8vt0BLWIuqMsxiUo6hyzi2m3vNHoMiUxE6uDl3u_7nF8ujqwHvvqyC0Iwc_BGehzcvOPhCaaISTdi9raqgDkTxneCKogAhJcq31cJODmiPgkAOiec7P5ttskwzbq/s1600-h/swm_swimming.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk46DagA2A8vt0BLWIuqMsxiUo6hyzi2m3vNHoMiUxE6uDl3u_7nF8ujqwHvvqyC0Iwc_BGehzcvOPhCaaISTdi9raqgDkTxneCKogAhJcq31cJODmiPgkAOiec7P5ttskwzbq/s320/swm_swimming.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399224858508430242" border="0" /></a>In a typical dream, in which horses fly and rivers flow with melted cheese, it is difficult to speculate how the mental images might be readings of brain activity. However, if one wakes up from a dream with a full bladder, it is often the case that the dream images involved water, swimming, and the like, so there is a plausible relationship between the dream image and the “reading” of the bodily state.<br /><br />Physicians and brain physiologists should have dream images that are more easily associated with bodily conditions than would be true for other people, because they have more detailed, ready-made social-linguistic conceptualizations of those bodily conditions to draw upon.<br /><br />7. It also follows from this line of thinking that Freud’s method of dream interpretation by free-association has nothing to do with the meaning of dreams. Of course it is possible to free-associate to the ideas and images in a dream report, just as it is possible to free-associate to something that happened yesterday. The dream report is just a kind of short story, no different in principle from one plucked from a published anthology.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr77l4BP9SDl2e1NympKnJH-UZulgUtTtmo8ilVnyOvRQKaFRvVhOD3DxVfuugmz97P3xkX7Teh0ep8z1mkopG6ipd-2tulTRSxDBuxW5jjWTrC2dOcVrZmmRiqyA_qqO5m1ia/s1600-h/RousseauDream.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 264px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr77l4BP9SDl2e1NympKnJH-UZulgUtTtmo8ilVnyOvRQKaFRvVhOD3DxVfuugmz97P3xkX7Teh0ep8z1mkopG6ipd-2tulTRSxDBuxW5jjWTrC2dOcVrZmmRiqyA_qqO5m1ia/s320/RousseauDream.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399230370789769922" border="0" /></a>Free-associating to its elements may be a fruitful way to start a conversation about previously unconceptualized feelings and ideas, but it is no way an “interpretation” of that dream. The correct interpretation of any dream is that it is a mental conceptualization of brain events occurring during Phase I REM sleep.<br /><br />8. In the future there will be a downloadable iPod application that will allow real-time fMRI monitoring of brain activity so you can see what your brain is doing while you type, eat, walk, fantasize, and listen to music.<br /><br />Over time people will learn to conceptualize and control the brain’s activity as well as athletes do their muscular activity today. Most dreams then would cease to be bizarre and would be more like descriptions because the correlation between brain activity and socio-linguistic conceptualization would be stronger.<br /><br />People will inevitably communicate by reference to commonly identified brain images, the way <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxPcHS8Gbeh1O5rdYnfPDxUDCPW1GA3pnG_s7ram7tGh-6xnbLzlJF1IKjt_V2JdZOg_KcF9HlD9Ne6NniqWhge88uGMQTnr6RpVVJGAE_-ICOKtZEiEv8d_oIxJOblAwRATg/s1600-h/iPOD+fMRI.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 113px; height: 165px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxPcHS8Gbeh1O5rdYnfPDxUDCPW1GA3pnG_s7ram7tGh-6xnbLzlJF1IKjt_V2JdZOg_KcF9HlD9Ne6NniqWhge88uGMQTnr6RpVVJGAE_-ICOKtZEiEv8d_oIxJOblAwRATg/s320/iPOD+fMRI.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399228252515804514" border="0" /></a>we now maintain the social fabric by reference to commonly understood activities, as in, “How ‘bout them Yankees?”<br /><br />In the future people will refer to numbered and idealized fMRI sequences correlated to common experience. They will talk about a fMRI 42a followed by a 197-3 then ask, “What do you think of that?”<br /><br />Too bad I’ll miss it.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-20228559450791482992009-12-11T10:38:00.000-08:002009-12-11T11:11:22.172-08:00What NOT to buy at Staples<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil26U8xITannTt3bn5_Ky5PjnaxsDkhqa2sNDjMjITUUfxnLzRR5xh8QvzKl9khhV5Ckt6HyCvB6m7Dgc7FQ2joggj8qzmEmgGT2HuSVLzR7fS69g17lIcvMFdxI_osgZNVkBs/s1600-h/staples+store.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil26U8xITannTt3bn5_Ky5PjnaxsDkhqa2sNDjMjITUUfxnLzRR5xh8QvzKl9khhV5Ckt6HyCvB6m7Dgc7FQ2joggj8qzmEmgGT2HuSVLzR7fS69g17lIcvMFdxI_osgZNVkBs/s320/staples+store.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414056914267034898" border="0" /></a>Staples is my favorite office supply store. They have everything, at good prices. However, there are some desk essentials you should not buy there: paper clips and staples. Why? Because they slap their brand label on everything.<br /><br />Every time I am low on refill staples, I check the shelf under the printer, and what do I see? Sure enough, there is a large box labeled “Staples.” So I figure, no problem, I am well supplied. But actually, it is paper clips, and I am out of staples. <br /><br />Once in a while I remember this little conundrum and so I explicitly put “staples” on my shopping list. However, once at the store, I inevitably buy paper clips, because they are easier to find and they say “Staples” on the box.<br /><br />I am chronically “long” on paper clips because I am always buying them when I am out of staples. Also, when I run low on paper clips at my desk, I look on the shelf, and see only boxes labeled “staples.” So naturally, next time I am out, I buy paper clips. <br /><br />So forget Staples for your paper clips, too. If you need paper clips, call me, I have plenty.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPWyYe_NLImszhbmc1bUdGdOOy2D3tRdrM35nv-l16BMLtx4XwTWJ5u00MNMN9hLvtKSFt4juMFSvFZwIErUjwlOmfRyiFqBnd4YUG9nDRQ526bbxIVTvdrtQ8A-SeVPNgamB/s1600-h/stapler.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPWyYe_NLImszhbmc1bUdGdOOy2D3tRdrM35nv-l16BMLtx4XwTWJ5u00MNMN9hLvtKSFt4juMFSvFZwIErUjwlOmfRyiFqBnd4YUG9nDRQ526bbxIVTvdrtQ8A-SeVPNgamB/s320/stapler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414057242763485874" border="0" /></a>Finally, I should just mention these related perplexities: 1. Why do you always run out of staples right when you need one? The stapler goes empty at the exact moment when you are squeezing finality to that critical report. Click! Out of staples. That is infuriating. The stapler never goes empty in the middle of the night when no one would be bothered. No. Only when it matters most. <br /><br />And 2: Where do paper clips go? Why do we have to buy them at all? I always save and re-use them, unless they are badly distorted. Most people do the same. So why is there inevitably a net shortage of paper clips? Is there some undocumented law of paper clip entropy?Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-23237271305199819712009-10-11T09:03:00.000-07:002009-10-28T16:39:42.931-07:00Crazy-ass Bombers<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs_Ghcruo8V8akt-Fvrc1NQgC6AMu5IpOu5XafGQl9Fzc97C1fWZcUDeKF-RaNY7yLMIyw2SuYHX43S52u0q8LD8VwIvgvpRSiVgxMGo7uG175Fx2DSFf7gDfrQ3UbH3tVML36/s1600-h/najibullah_zazi--300x300.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs_Ghcruo8V8akt-Fvrc1NQgC6AMu5IpOu5XafGQl9Fzc97C1fWZcUDeKF-RaNY7yLMIyw2SuYHX43S52u0q8LD8VwIvgvpRSiVgxMGo7uG175Fx2DSFf7gDfrQ3UbH3tVML36/s320/najibullah_zazi--300x300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391375531529603442" border="0" /></a>In September, a 24-year old Afghan immigrant, was arrested for planning to blow up a New York Building. A week before, a 29-year old fry cook who likes to be called Talib Islam, was charged with attempting to blow up a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois. A day later, a 19 year old Jordanian national was arrested for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Dallas. According to the Heritage Foundation, 23 known terrorist plots have been foiled in the last eight years (www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/bg2294.cfm).<br /><br />What is up with these people? I’m wondering if my wife is right, a tax on all males between 15 and 50 would finance most law enforcement and national security. Assuming these nutcases are not actually psychotic, what motivates them (other than 72 heavenly raisins)? The Islamists are attacking the infidel, they believe, a righteous battle in the name of God. But why do they believe that, and what do they hope to accomplish?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfKB24m-RHLxu3NOhwRMQbP6Hnk0xkvERXj9H6dcnL5nPho_xOhznOou8n6f-N-tSzDmvnskbtnO-qRXjk3Z5QXTnr1xzwJXtIk50tJefL_TvTXQMmPTgh_O3P8kYht1jFyc3/s1600-h/carbomb10bangkok.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 207px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfKB24m-RHLxu3NOhwRMQbP6Hnk0xkvERXj9H6dcnL5nPho_xOhznOou8n6f-N-tSzDmvnskbtnO-qRXjk3Z5QXTnr1xzwJXtIk50tJefL_TvTXQMmPTgh_O3P8kYht1jFyc3/s320/carbomb10bangkok.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391375366121875234" border="0" /></a>The proximal issue is education. The terrorists uniformly are not well educated, by Western standards. They know only the Koran. They know nothing of secular history, science, philosophy, or the principles of critical thinking. I’m sure that is a point of pride for most of them, but an extremely narrow world view does not leave much room for getting along with other people.<br /><br />Presumably, Islamists get along fine with their own people, and that’s all that matters to them. They want the esteem of their imagined peers, not of the infidel. If they broadened their sense of community beyond the cult, they would quickly realize that they would take a serious hit on the esteem front from pluralism. So there is a built-in defense against consideration for outsiders.<br /><br />“Islam” means peace, submission, obedience. Submission to what or whom? Not modern law, not community standards, not philosophical principles. It means only submission to God as defined in the Koran and often interpreted by extremist nuts. But in the beginning the term referred to the principle of submitting your personal ego to the good of the tribe. That was a huge innovation in early Arab tribalism. If each individual was utterly subservient to the tribe, you had a fighting machine with replaceable parts as good as any modern army. The “sword of Islam” would have been demonstrably superior in warfare.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJwxEDyBW6VVvLmKqbdDlLNN8mnXmCjGZLqLP9YxiUB94FoYStvdLfnB-kWT7OAygWBuXDTXdcdiaUE_1KB67UIcF7gxdpL2abe4DYl0GkrFx828sLt_2haed2Hq5JeClmhOG7/s1600-h/islam_symbol_sword.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJwxEDyBW6VVvLmKqbdDlLNN8mnXmCjGZLqLP9YxiUB94FoYStvdLfnB-kWT7OAygWBuXDTXdcdiaUE_1KB67UIcF7gxdpL2abe4DYl0GkrFx828sLt_2haed2Hq5JeClmhOG7/s320/islam_symbol_sword.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391375191288973442" border="0" /></a>Why would an individual want to submit his individual will, either to the will of the tribe or later, to the will of Allah? What’s to gain from loss of self? Immortality. Or, at least the fantasy illusion of immortality. If you are not an individual, you cannot die, because the tribe lives on. We know that for a fact because as members of the tribe we see individuals die all the time, but the tribe continues. So if you abrogate individual intentionality and responsibility to the will of the tribe, you too will continue indefinitely. The core motivation for adherence to Islam is fear of death.<br /><br />Many Islamists deny that and boast of their love of death. However, that is a reaction formation, a defense against death anxiety. What they long for is immortality, not personal annihilation. That’s why suicide car bombers have their hands taped to the wheel, and why they are only ready to serve after intensive indoctrination. If Islamists really loved death so much, suicide would suffice. For example, public self-immolation can make a powerful political or religious statement, and still accomplish death, if that were the goal. Instead the goal of killing a flock of infidels reveals a more pedestrian motivation to achieve the esteem of peers (“martyrdom”) through distinction in tribal warfare.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbLTSBuukQ5DlZgacnl8ZK4pIHCpEBaBO1ShCAJQGwmOCJORgdKGYQZfBs-TtKBY8nsB7GfT6pEzgOgMFpwqGQjieQGrRqbeq4IctN76nZxv8mmOr6PPa_Qxy16H3QacrKIvw/s1600-h/ascend2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbLTSBuukQ5DlZgacnl8ZK4pIHCpEBaBO1ShCAJQGwmOCJORgdKGYQZfBs-TtKBY8nsB7GfT6pEzgOgMFpwqGQjieQGrRqbeq4IctN76nZxv8mmOr6PPa_Qxy16H3QacrKIvw/s320/ascend2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391376188107774130" border="0" /></a>All the religions have fairy stories to alleviate death anxiety. That is the main service provided by religion. In Christianity, good works (or arbitrary grace) will get you to heaven, where you will sit at the right hand of God forever, which is presumably a good thing. That promise is supposed to reduce your death anxiety. Coming out of a tradition of tribal warfare, Islam emphasized instead that the key to immortality is to support your tribe in fighting other tribes, or at least, for moderates, to abjure completely the ways and ideas of tribal outsiders. The Islamic promise of immortality is no less fantastic than those of other religions.<br /><br />Dealing with death anxiety is not easy for anyone. The idea that you will cease to exist while everything goes on without you, is almost unthinkable. We deeply need an alternate story, and religion supplies it. But religions come in all flavors, and unfortunately for us, Islam is one whose solution to the problem was interpreted as xenophobic warfare. The only thing that is ever going to change that is a modified system of Islamic education.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-12935335569535017332009-09-06T09:42:00.001-07:002009-09-06T10:13:10.419-07:00My Bedroom Fan<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBgdUmzYk47TKRl7lZ0jrPJwYEOfND66A3u3WkwStMYOTvEtceUzr9u25nX9qMVFbaDSrvFcc5Loc6vvoA88gewmQdr7_BB0BOs6tqhoVGIVVm3Dqh9YloJYcR0GZGUbUcSjl/s1600-h/IMG_5037.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 158px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBgdUmzYk47TKRl7lZ0jrPJwYEOfND66A3u3WkwStMYOTvEtceUzr9u25nX9qMVFbaDSrvFcc5Loc6vvoA88gewmQdr7_BB0BOs6tqhoVGIVVm3Dqh9YloJYcR0GZGUbUcSjl/s320/IMG_5037.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378401408866942738" border="0" /></a>I spend a lot of time contemplating the fan that spins over my bed. This is a picture of it. That’s approximately how it looks to me most of the time. But that’s not how it really is. In reality the fan is a hub and spoke system with five blades. But when the blades are spinning, they cannot be discriminated and the fan looks more like a solid wheel.<br /><br />Why is that? Why can I not see the fan as it really is? Why do I see a false image, of a wheel that is not actually there? Am I hallucinating? No matter how carefully I stare, I cannot see actual fan blades. What am I seeing, if not reality? This should shake my confidence in the veracity of vision. Except for tricks and special situations, we generally believe that “seeing is believing.” In other words, what we see is what is there.<br /><br />But this is a clear case of seeing what is not there, and not seeing what is there. And it is not a trick or special situation. Apparently, the mechanics of my eye cannot resolve the details of the blades as they spin. In order to fixate an image of something on the retina, the image must be still, for a moment at least, about a fifth of a second. That’s the only way we can see something.<br /><br />What about things that are moving? We can see those under normal circumstances because the eyes take successive “snapshots” of the scene and integrate them over time to communicate movement to the brain, much as the rapid succession of snapshots in a film appears to us as a moving picture (another delusional visual experience). We do not actually see motion. We infer motion.<br /><br />But in the case of my fan, the movement of the blades is faster than the snapshot rate of my eyes, so I cannot get a fixed image of the blades. The eyes are always moving, jerking around in a process called the visual nystagmus. They vibrate at least 20 times a second, sometimes faster, fixating here, there, everywhere, taking snapshots. It seems like the visual world is stable and that we just look at it and see it as it is, but that is not true. The eyes get at least 20 snapshots per second, no one of them taking in the whole scene. Each snapshot is with the eyes focused on a restricted detail of the scene. Then you synthesize the overall scene in your brain, based on the snapshots. The nice stable scene you think you see is a total fiction. You never saw it. You only saw dozens and dozens of tiny snapshots.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8R70RPvTW9SlQGGssbc8PCM-RuEUi3ffQevSkSAp0EFgWwUdb1VnxfYCxhyCh5U2cxIz7E1HTDFP2rOirs52KKBV98GTaSDfpsgTNJ_sdRHES4dkdYMCRSmYxe2xJCOCj9OUf/s1600-h/IMG_5026.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 280px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8R70RPvTW9SlQGGssbc8PCM-RuEUi3ffQevSkSAp0EFgWwUdb1VnxfYCxhyCh5U2cxIz7E1HTDFP2rOirs52KKBV98GTaSDfpsgTNJ_sdRHES4dkdYMCRSmYxe2xJCOCj9OUf/s320/IMG_5026.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378397327844004002" border="0" /></a>So I thought I would try to beat the visual system and my bedroom fan. I moved my eyes in a fast counter-clockwise motion around the hub, to see if I could make my eyes catch up with the fan blades. And it worked! Every few seconds, I would get a brief image of the individual blades of the fan. That’s because the muscles and nerves for voluntary eye movements are different from the ones used in the visual nystagmus. By adding the two eye movements together, I gave the nystagmus a chance to make a fixation on the blades.<br /><br />It seemed to work randomly. Whenever there was an eye fixation that happened to hit a blade and not the space between blades, I would see an individual fan blade. Why this did not occur more often, I am not sure. Perhaps I also needed to catch a moment when the blurred motion signals to my brain were calm enough to let an individually fixated image through. Or perhaps my voluntary, circular eye movements were not really very circular, but most often erratic. It is impossible for me to know that.<br /><br />Anyway, the demonstration proved visually that the blurred circular image I normally see is a complete illusion, not the reality of what is there. The fact that I could force the visual system to apprehend the true reality of the individual blades confirmed the presence of the illusion. So it makes me wonder, what else am I seeing that is illusory? How can I trust that what I see is really there if I know for a fact that sometimes I am seeing it wrong?<br /><br />Descartes asked this same question in 1640 and came up with this answer: God is good, and God would not deceive you (most of the time). Therefore, you can be reasonably confident that what you see is what is there. Well, that answer doesn’t work for me. In the first place, it is not entirely clear that God is good. Biblical and contemporary evidence would speak to the contrary.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEJpkVhfKkT8QD1F4_ikXo4edlSArBkVUdySCQnT4vA2bI_XObWJnBKNx-gFQuo7EKLwX9wZUGP-C0TttJi_O6Mf5sawb-Us6qskbVTyyN6PF1SdexpzekbHmcukV7D5nhge2/s1600-h/Face03.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 204px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEJpkVhfKkT8QD1F4_ikXo4edlSArBkVUdySCQnT4vA2bI_XObWJnBKNx-gFQuo7EKLwX9wZUGP-C0TttJi_O6Mf5sawb-Us6qskbVTyyN6PF1SdexpzekbHmcukV7D5nhge2/s320/Face03.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378397877108229426" border="0" /></a>Secondly, my experience with my bedroom fan proved that Descartes’ answer is wrong in this case. What I see most of the time is clearly illusion. Should I assume that God deceived me because God is a malicious trickster?<br /><br />And finally, Descartes had no evidence to support his claim. It is merely what he believed, because he had been told as much by the Church. I can’t assume his answer is correct if he just made it up or parroted what he had been told. It seems just as likely that the correct answer is that you cannot and should not believe that what you see is what is there. What’s wrong with that answer?Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-71326245640683594502009-08-09T12:12:00.001-07:002009-08-09T12:20:29.112-07:00Turing Test Redux<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCflTt_eXIp5FQlIG6HWS7Sm0-UUjRs10qMWpGU5Fo9JWR2gX4NKi8sbnQYYneWxiSY7TOAYAEv1vTHpJLQ4yE5Froaep5vu8CYyNK5py8tcu1fiD4lpDbyGLTR77CygtL9jPp/s1600-h/Turing_Test_version_3.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCflTt_eXIp5FQlIG6HWS7Sm0-UUjRs10qMWpGU5Fo9JWR2gX4NKi8sbnQYYneWxiSY7TOAYAEv1vTHpJLQ4yE5Froaep5vu8CYyNK5py8tcu1fiD4lpDbyGLTR77CygtL9jPp/s320/Turing_Test_version_3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368044550392799922" border="0" /></a>A recent article in The Economist (“Diagnosing Comas: Unlucky for Some” July 25th, 2009) pointed out that distinguishing between different types of comas is difficult even for specially trained physicians. If someone is in a “persistent vegetative state” they show no signs of consciousness at all. It may be merciful, and legal, to cut off their food and water and let them go.<br /><br />Other coma patients are in what’s called a “minimally conscious state,” meaning they can sometimes communicate by blinking or moving their eyes in response to questions. That communicative consciousness may be intermittent, displayed only for a few minutes in a month, but it is enough to make a large moral and compassionate difference between the two coma states.<br /><br />A recent study in Britain found that 40% of patients diagnosed as being vegetative were actually not. Careful and detailed screening tests for communication can show up the difference, but most doctors do not use these tests, preferring to rely on “clinical experience.” This replicates a similar finding from a decade ago.<br /><br />Unsettling as the finding is, one interesting aspect is the use of what amounts to a Turing Test as the definition of consciousness. In 1950, computer scientist Alan Turing proposed a way to tell if a person (or a computer, for that matter) is conscious. In the now-famous “Turing Test,” you have a conversation with a robot, and a person, both hidden from you by a curtain. If you cannot tell which is which, the robot passes the test and you must, to avoid inconsistency, admit that it is conscious. So the ultimate criterion of consciousness is meaningful communication.<br /><br />Unknowingly, the researchers whose work was reported in The Economist article were using a variant of the Turing Test to determine if a coma patient is conscious or not. If the patient can communicate, they are conscious. If not, they are “vegetative.”<br /><br />Is that a criterion we are comfortable with? Are we quite sure that vegetables have no consciousness? Are we perfectly clear on what constitutes “communication?” If I ask a tree how it is feeling and it suddenly bends way over in the wind, has it answered me? Who is to say?<br /><br />The Turing test has been hotly debated among cognitive psychologists and A.I. researchers for half a century and is by no means universally accepted. It seems odd that the pinnacle of neurophysiological practice would now strive to depend on it.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-44487107143725848772009-04-24T10:12:00.000-07:002009-05-16T08:58:44.333-07:00Dogs Don't Know What Dreams Are<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRtTqJtrmYwU-_3EmLi-u82k_hvOdP7tqB7eC2gw28d9RyVw_2RhD2EbQ6CXroyd8wabEJmbHmlLAa9P0jMF_rDUANRTcJpm5QG4qf_RpRgSD_wpWFeN0fPiZib5S5I_OT9zsD/s1600-h/dreamingdog.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 182px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRtTqJtrmYwU-_3EmLi-u82k_hvOdP7tqB7eC2gw28d9RyVw_2RhD2EbQ6CXroyd8wabEJmbHmlLAa9P0jMF_rDUANRTcJpm5QG4qf_RpRgSD_wpWFeN0fPiZib5S5I_OT9zsD/s320/dreamingdog.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328307261022460754" border="0" /></a>What do dogs dream about? Chasing rabbits, or something similar, we assume. Dog brainwaves during sleep show rhythms similar to ours, including REM periods during which dreams occur. So it is a reasonable guess that dogs have dreams.<br /><br />I saw a video clip of a dog having a dream. It is embedded in this inane “news” report (as of 4/21/09):<br />http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/03/the-shot-dreaming-dog/<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRyqq4lcZvYSw_3DzPVYyeK4HIj2QnVoLFUwNoAqbYZbdQlFiQujIQCIiR2QA4PtxsJgDqJGmxvn3rkYv4H6txtngb27rKlubRF0kupyKQMqMTdtrVrv5p4z_hqJUxvAfbD9p/s1600-h/Dog+Dreams2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRyqq4lcZvYSw_3DzPVYyeK4HIj2QnVoLFUwNoAqbYZbdQlFiQujIQCIiR2QA4PtxsJgDqJGmxvn3rkYv4H6txtngb27rKlubRF0kupyKQMqMTdtrVrv5p4z_hqJUxvAfbD9p/s320/Dog+Dreams2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328308931974227858" border="0" /></a>The dog is asleep, lying on its side, when its feet start twitching. The feet and legs move faster, and become increasingly energetic until the dog looks like it is running full stride about as fast as it can. The forepaws reach out and the back legs push off powerfully. This is a dog in full pursuit!<br /><br />Then the dog gets up on all fours, and still asleep, or mostly asleep, barks, and bounds headlong into a wall. The dog falls down, gets up again and looks around dazed and confused. It’s a humorous video.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1FTp8RT_atya8yifvHO5kVPPIDLDUAtZ4LRhHrcFaff_WWEdbOc0WW597n3ystB6uninARnBSQ5wNCkoXZ5Nw5jST9SUnRjSob8xb60SILIocNC6u8sAOkRYvpnNMWXDg7Qa/s1600-h/Dog+dreams1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1FTp8RT_atya8yifvHO5kVPPIDLDUAtZ4LRhHrcFaff_WWEdbOc0WW597n3ystB6uninARnBSQ5wNCkoXZ5Nw5jST9SUnRjSob8xb60SILIocNC6u8sAOkRYvpnNMWXDg7Qa/s320/Dog+dreams1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328308682747426338" border="0" /></a>But the interesting part is that dogs don’t know what dreams are. They have limited conceptual capacity, certainly nothing that would enable them to understand the difference between dreaming and wakefulness. Children may have the same problem until caregivers instruct them on the difference. “Don’t be afraid, it was only a dream; It wasn’t real.” Nobody tells the dog that.<br /><br />From the dog’s point of view it was, for all psychological purposes, actually in pursuit of some prey when suddenly a solid wall intervened. What kind of world is that to live in? That’s a world that makes no sense. Yet what can the dog do but accept it? That is just the reality of the dog’s experience.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz1zW4X6l53-C7iPF8355-qr48AzPKAfisTdQLQxZZYKrfebk6iOa2nwLyfR72ZYxsc-yIZJXOvrdlvH5Tj_dkBFhGrjyUueHvfQuclrnO9gzr6838lxWa4clz-j_oTJuccTZh/s1600-h/REM+sleep.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 258px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz1zW4X6l53-C7iPF8355-qr48AzPKAfisTdQLQxZZYKrfebk6iOa2nwLyfR72ZYxsc-yIZJXOvrdlvH5Tj_dkBFhGrjyUueHvfQuclrnO9gzr6838lxWa4clz-j_oTJuccTZh/s320/REM+sleep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328309599609122802" border="0" /></a>Normally, during REM sleep (dream sleep), the musculature of the body is paralyzed (REM atonia). Signals from the somatosensory cortex are damped so we do not act out our dreams. In abnormal cases, a person might partially act out a dream, such as by sleepwalking or sleep talking. But normally, the brain inhibits the action signals so that doesn’t happen.<br /><br />This video showed what looked like an older dog, and it is likely that his brain was not functioning properly, not inhibiting his bodily action during REM sleep. A few twitches might be normal, but such vigorous acting out of a dream is an abnormal occurrence.<br /><br />Even for us, from inside the dream, the activity of the somatosensory cortex is the same as it would be in waking experience, so the dream seems “real.” It IS real, as far as it goes, because the same brain circuits are being used as would be used in waking life. But without feedback from the body, those action signals don’t have normal consequences, so you might find yourself flying through the air or walking through walls. As far as the brain is concerned, it is just another experience.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s6Mt6kEK_DahoT-0TSkV4jKzXbThmoYcSVbdWBglSk3ZV8KPTbF0QkoI6vA4fJFThO2L8p88FQP_ETAguJxiJSmIIdueSBQud7l0SWfCfWbN450EuzwxYE-L6YbNUvFTDBAl/s1600-h/Ego-Ideq1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 264px; height: 223px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s6Mt6kEK_DahoT-0TSkV4jKzXbThmoYcSVbdWBglSk3ZV8KPTbF0QkoI6vA4fJFThO2L8p88FQP_ETAguJxiJSmIIdueSBQud7l0SWfCfWbN450EuzwxYE-L6YbNUvFTDBAl/s320/Ego-Ideq1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328310041743134722" border="0" /></a>Why dream? There are theories that say the dreamer needs to work through psychic conflicts, express subliminal id impulses, and so on. The dream therefore serves a psychic need. But it seems implausible that a dog has repressed sexual urges or familial tensions. It is more likely that the dog’s dreams (and our own) are simply attempts to interpret the brain’s REM-phase activity as waking experience.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqflQxI2OtHE_DsSetfoQKb8ykjklJ7vIAAfZSZpq6dXM1SWTtUMpIXu9SzE-64pPkPyoG33_kngu1qTzr-nnV7MQd-Kpv6lh25Uw0CWjhJmghJ1cOfTrAYAA9k0f6dJLgKCf0/s1600-h/Dog+chase-rabbit.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqflQxI2OtHE_DsSetfoQKb8ykjklJ7vIAAfZSZpq6dXM1SWTtUMpIXu9SzE-64pPkPyoG33_kngu1qTzr-nnV7MQd-Kpv6lh25Uw0CWjhJmghJ1cOfTrAYAA9k0f6dJLgKCf0/s320/Dog+chase-rabbit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328311252387880242" border="0" /></a> The dog does not think, “Aha! Rabbit! Must catch!” The meaning is automatic. Dogs chase rabbits; that's it.<br /><br />For the dog, there is no difference between chasing a dream rabbit and chasing a real rabbit. In the dream, joyfully chasing the rabbit over hills and vales, that is just as valid and real as any other experience in the dog’s life.<br /><br />After waking, the dog does not think, “I wonder why I feel tired and sore, when just a few minutes ago I was chasing that rabbit all over creation.” The dog cannot think like that and is <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-F-xKmO0SAHz6Aa8dNq0si6c6EC5dmF7hIvC2AbazhBOWmt_XHeJPL_m83U91Maw_6hO3RkoSwM2bNxZ2Hl0jNQla1N5ITWj0DdOW64PwacKj6iQoUfWIm7MmUfWvWaJByQu/s1600-h/illusion_Spinning.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 313px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-F-xKmO0SAHz6Aa8dNq0si6c6EC5dmF7hIvC2AbazhBOWmt_XHeJPL_m83U91Maw_6hO3RkoSwM2bNxZ2Hl0jNQla1N5ITWj0DdOW64PwacKj6iQoUfWIm7MmUfWvWaJByQu/s320/illusion_Spinning.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328311422946877954" border="0" /></a>oblivious to the question. The dog does not think, “Hey, what happened to that beautiful field I was just in? How did I get into this dingy, stuffy room?” Again, ignorance is bliss . Dream and reality are not even alternate kinds of experience for the dog. They are just two experiences that happened. Nothing is reasonable or unreasonable for a dog.<br /><br />Why isn’t it that way for us? We are extremely keen on making a distinction between what is real and what is <span style="font-style: italic;">only </span>a dream. It doesn’t matter to the dog. Why does it matter for us?Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-2938368046775142472009-03-23T10:37:00.000-07:002009-03-25T08:04:12.859-07:00Real Memory?<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHJaud9LX_bWYIxe2NqFJFyhiLqobulb3jK9o417OtjktWsYIG2pUZjfF7ECLQiJoV22lnDfEk38yKkv9_7aEwc1J9hcMphPlaQklbaDU17KrrHqPrhayTLDd8qegY0yOjmn8/s1600-h/Neural+assembly.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 184px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHJaud9LX_bWYIxe2NqFJFyhiLqobulb3jK9o417OtjktWsYIG2pUZjfF7ECLQiJoV22lnDfEk38yKkv9_7aEwc1J9hcMphPlaQklbaDU17KrrHqPrhayTLDd8qegY0yOjmn8/s320/Neural+assembly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316443266000788130" border="0" /></a>Scientists at Tel Aviv University claim to have created neuronal memories on a silicon chip. Live neurons were put on a silicon chip that had electrodes for reading electrical activity. Every time scientists put a nerve-stimulating chemical at the same spot, they saw the same pattern of electrical activity come out of the electrodes, then die down. After several repetitions, the pattern continued without further chemical stimulus. The researchers believed the neurons learned to anticipate the chemical and claimed that the neuron group had formed a memory.<br /><br />But there are two things wrong with the analogy and the conclusion. First, there was no conditioned stimulus, the equivalent of Pavlov’s bell (he actually used a buzzer, but the <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWBclE6CeVFPhiCbyLkhRDcA7Z_0GckbcBxUka2nDrZVcxA4ytISZMkVeX6xW867vALFVDgX2_1lBy2aSgRMgj06kn7L5TqTrfIR3OUpLdFjyEuxN0yp9AxNbuuCDrpCd4Qnm/s1600-h/Classical+Conditioning.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 263px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWBclE6CeVFPhiCbyLkhRDcA7Z_0GckbcBxUka2nDrZVcxA4ytISZMkVeX6xW867vALFVDgX2_1lBy2aSgRMgj06kn7L5TqTrfIR3OUpLdFjyEuxN0yp9AxNbuuCDrpCd4Qnm/s320/Classical+Conditioning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316443452256727874" border="0" /></a>idea of a bell has become fixed in folklore). Pavlov paired the bell and the food many times, then found that the dog would salivate to the bell alone. (Pavolv's Nobel Prize acceptance speech about this topic was scorned as "too mental," not scientific).<br /><br />In the neural cell assembly scenario, the neurons had nothing to anticipate. There was no bell (and neurons can't hear anyway). They merely perseverated their previous activity. A plucked guitar string will continue to sound a tone for a while, but that does not demonstrate learning or memory, at least not in the cognitive sense of memory.<br /><br />The second problem is with this study's conclusion. The authors assume that memory <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">is </span>a certain pattern of neural activity. But that definition plays on a semantic ambiguity. An alarm clock has memory, but that is a functional use of the term. If we mean cognitive memory, as humans have, then the alarm clock doesn't have it, and neither do the cells on a chip. A cognitive memory is a re-experience.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqzSDR-K5PK5osyD85DL65oDgFhtyX4azdOF_o8oYMOYqxCFUM9pK1wG77nrsIAkihtEhvBhyki5ryi6vw90EcH597Kix52dNk-E0eXhFV8j2IfMAu_CoNcwJLVbfqFO1pCiK/s1600-h/alarm+clock.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 157px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqzSDR-K5PK5osyD85DL65oDgFhtyX4azdOF_o8oYMOYqxCFUM9pK1wG77nrsIAkihtEhvBhyki5ryi6vw90EcH597Kix52dNk-E0eXhFV8j2IfMAu_CoNcwJLVbfqFO1pCiK/s320/alarm+clock.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316443648932911922" border="0" /></a>My memory of last night’s dinner includes lemon, risotto, and Syrah. It does not have any quality of a cell assembly,which is not an explanation adequate to the phenomenon. Pointing out a neural correlate to memory is helpful, but naming cell activity, literally, “a memory,” is thoughtless or malicious misdirection.<br /><br />Overall then, the interpretation of this study is utterly confused. It has nothing to do with memory. Don't believe everything you read!<br /><br />Reference:<br />D.C. (2007). This is your brain on a chip. Science News, 171, (April 21), 253.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-23601406076962581552009-02-25T07:39:00.000-08:002009-02-25T07:45:12.899-08:00Why Accept Your Name?<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsOxx32r09cjzFTYmcPQATcXLDajF-QVsp9qlVMM9C-ImTjTph1pJ7uiS4HWb0_rCfxWxw-IynkApT4a9TD-wE6chuK7Zv1qEMOGDinlVHTIH96MHLRiIhoNb6XhPhXAri-e2/s1600-h/bizarro-middle-name-at.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsOxx32r09cjzFTYmcPQATcXLDajF-QVsp9qlVMM9C-ImTjTph1pJ7uiS4HWb0_rCfxWxw-IynkApT4a9TD-wE6chuK7Zv1qEMOGDinlVHTIH96MHLRiIhoNb6XhPhXAri-e2/s320/bizarro-middle-name-at.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306760453813699442" border="0" /></a>Why do we accept the name assigned to us before we were born?<br /><br />At maturity we should choose another. People try to adjust their given name: Margaret becomes Maggie, Marge Madge. Elizabeth morphs to Beth, Betty, Lissa, Liza, Elisa, Elspeth.<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(Dan Pirarro www.bizarro.com)</span></span><br /><br />But these are minor variations on the inherited moniker. Why not choose Pixie or Pyrgopolynices? Few people do. I always thought Boutros-Boutros was a nice first name.<br /><br />Some cultures assign you a new name at maturity, such as Dances With Wolves. But that’s still not your own choice.<br /><br />We name our pets Jingles, Boots, Spot, and the like. The pets don’t mind. Most will respond to their given name. We have the right of naming because we own the pet.<br /><br />Do your parents own you? Are you the equivalent of a pet? If you are your own person, why not choose your own name?Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-10778667599797273882009-02-05T17:24:00.000-08:002009-02-05T17:32:13.260-08:00Time Travel in a Box<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoaqmBrYcu-WQ0q43StPkAPV4EyIqEEpfWOE2UOR1fA2uxfa-YA999ft_FQz08zycViSP1OpWcXywk9FkmlP13WAKeXL3wqWfQWzDT-QNq5dAjBvfwEj5KqwyxrVpFd0vjhue/s1600-h/frame2-jpg.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 105px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoaqmBrYcu-WQ0q43StPkAPV4EyIqEEpfWOE2UOR1fA2uxfa-YA999ft_FQz08zycViSP1OpWcXywk9FkmlP13WAKeXL3wqWfQWzDT-QNq5dAjBvfwEj5KqwyxrVpFd0vjhue/s320/frame2-jpg.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299489500500441858" border="0" /></a>Here is the plan for a simple time machine. Consider the drawing at left.<br /><br />A projector, at the lower left corner of the box, shines a light up to a mirror, on path “a” where it is reflected down to the detector at the lower right along path “b”. The total distance the beam of light travels is thus a+b.<br /><br />Now suppose the box moves so fast that it is able to complete a journey during the time that the beam of light is traveling from the projector to the detector. In the drawing below, the middle position shows the box at a time exactly in the middle of its journey, just as the beam of light strikes the mirror. On the right we see the box at t3, the end of its journey. Now we ask, how far did the beam of light travel? Was it not the distance e+f?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfe482UPvg-SRFW-fDxp98L9KLuoKAYrIJVVxcvVF_ljaMAM7em8WNWj9teGsz0HzzvhdguDcz05dGZhi_mlDvgpbIYsjKHP3AYBaW2nevpOGe9XRSBjsgJo4wp4yxCrPxj66/s1600-h/frame3-jpg.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 296px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfe482UPvg-SRFW-fDxp98L9KLuoKAYrIJVVxcvVF_ljaMAM7em8WNWj9teGsz0HzzvhdguDcz05dGZhi_mlDvgpbIYsjKHP3AYBaW2nevpOGe9XRSBjsgJo4wp4yxCrPxj66/s320/frame3-jpg.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299489594437809746" border="0" /></a><br />It must be, because when the journey started at t1, the projector was in the leftmost position, and in order for the beam of light to be detected at all, it had to arrive at the far right position at time t3, where the detector ended up.<br /><br />How could the beam of light travel the whole distance e+f in the same time it took to travel the shorter distance a+b when the box was stationary? This should not be possible because the speed of light never changes. In the laws of physics, it is a constant, known as c.<br /><br />To travel a longer distance in the same amount of time, the only possibility is that time slowed down while the box was moving, giving the light more time to make the longer journey at a constant speed. Thus the box is now displaced in time with respect to the rest of the world, literally “living in the past.”<br /><br />Perform that same sequence again, and the box falls even farther back in time. Cycle the experiment rapidly, and the box steadily recedes farther and farther back in time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWGPuHV_SL0lQwtsFODdK3_m8LyBa8tVEu0h64uKp0xQ3DdmRKpBtQeygQp9hHyK4tpNfoy8MU9-5znVjWIQbvNldQJKggRMsuAU9pkOq1jSaJzDCXsCkofrBhh-wqAC5ZEWK/s1600-h/recliner+with+beer.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 209px; height: 158px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWGPuHV_SL0lQwtsFODdK3_m8LyBa8tVEu0h64uKp0xQ3DdmRKpBtQeygQp9hHyK4tpNfoy8MU9-5znVjWIQbvNldQJKggRMsuAU9pkOq1jSaJzDCXsCkofrBhh-wqAC5ZEWK/s320/recliner+with+beer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299490233889381202" border="0" /></a>Put an easy chair in the box between the projector and the detector, settle into it, and you could take a ride into the past, as far back as you wanted to go. Unfortunately, you could never return to the present, so take a sandwich and a beer.<br /><br />With suitable controls, you could stop the machine and get out of the box anytime you liked. After exploring that period of history, you could get back in and go even farther back into the past.<br /><br />It’s so simple, you could build it in your garage!Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-87200317728037205322008-03-06T13:42:00.001-08:002009-01-30T06:39:59.944-08:00The Phantom Penis<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROg9m3vMGCssBw3tT7mwBJ9vkIjFP1vD1PUXhLufFWpfb-2lIQRVdi8Z63_buiYCR7AA1MdF0O1YGoUig2cDP6PsfAKL3d8FQDRPzHtv-W2ElVhigkDTSebkxkdd6Nom5rVyO/s1600-h/venus_de_milo_louvre.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 197px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROg9m3vMGCssBw3tT7mwBJ9vkIjFP1vD1PUXhLufFWpfb-2lIQRVdi8Z63_buiYCR7AA1MdF0O1YGoUig2cDP6PsfAKL3d8FQDRPzHtv-W2ElVhigkDTSebkxkdd6Nom5rVyO/s320/venus_de_milo_louvre.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174747505211385554" border="0" /></a>A phantom limb is the feeling that amputees often have that the missing limb is still attached and giving sensations. More than 50% of amputees experience a phantom limb. Phantom breast sensations can likewise occur after mastectomy.<br /><br />Unfortunately, sensations from a phantom body part are usually painful and that pain is almost impossible to treat, even though the pain is very real, not imaginary.<br /><br />There is a section of the cerebral cortex of the brain where nerve signals from major body parts go. In a typical drawing of this somatosensory cortex, the amount of cortex dedicated to a particular body part is represented by the relative size of a drawing of that body part. The face, lips, and tongue use a large part of the somatosensory cortex, and that corresponds to our experience that these parts of the body are well-innervated and particularly sensitive, compared, say, to the middle of the back.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzty-n0C9c-LpZLGk6y1zaVausUpbzuQgRtSWl7cQ8eJ3BPHOOL6nPFfJZU8lBaNjng890k4CvEgk956a1dRflMFH32BP4yhM8oc-5N_fmGidA3tS-c3BIjO3ex84GurO070ms/s1600-h/Sensory_Homunculus.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzty-n0C9c-LpZLGk6y1zaVausUpbzuQgRtSWl7cQ8eJ3BPHOOL6nPFfJZU8lBaNjng890k4CvEgk956a1dRflMFH32BP4yhM8oc-5N_fmGidA3tS-c3BIjO3ex84GurO070ms/s320/Sensory_Homunculus.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174747719959750370" border="0" /></a>There are two of these somatosensory cortexes, one on each side of the brain. The left somatosensory cortex represents the right side of the body, and vice-versa. Normally, if your right hand is stimulated, nerves would fire in the left somatosensory cortex, in the area corresponding to the right hand.<br /><style="text-align:left;"><br />The best explanation for phantom pain is that neurons fire in the relevant area of the somatosensory cortex, causing the sensation in the corresponding body part, whether or not that body part is actually present.<br /><br />Why would neurons in the somatosensory cortex fire in the absence of the corresponding body part? There is some evidence that nearby areas “take over” the part of the cortex that had been used by the lost body part (Ramachandran, Rogers-Ramachandran & Stewart 1992). The brain acts as if it believed there is no reason to let perfectly good cortex go to waste just because a body part has been amputated. The result can be the experience of a phantom limb and its phantom pain.<br /><br />In an interesting new study, Ramachandran and McGeoch (2008) surveyed a sample of transgender individuals (also called transsexuals), people who have chosen to change from one sex to the other through use of hormones and surgery. About one out of 2500 males underwent transsexual surgery in the U.S. in the last four decades (Conway, 2002). If you count those men who experience “intense gender dysphoria” (unhappiness with their anatomical gender and desire to be the other gender), but who have not undergone surgery, the frequency is one out of 500. So while uncommon, this is by no means a rare situation.<br /><br />Ramachandran and MGeoch sampled both male to female (MtF) and female to male (FtM) transgender cases. They asked these individuals if they have ever experienced a phantom penis or phantom breasts. They discovered:<br /><br />1. Among 29 FtM individuals 62% reported a vivid phantom penis, including phantom erections. Many said they had experienced these phantoms for years, well before the transgender program of hormone therapy. These are people who were born female, so finding such a large incidence of phantom penis sensations in people who had never in their lives had a penis, is remarkable to say the least.<br /><br />For comparison, the authors interviewed a sample of ten college-aged females who were not transgendered, and none of them reported ever having anything like phantom penis sensations.<br /><br />The implication is that for some reason the transgender females had the representation of a male’s body in their somatosensory cortex, giving them phantom penis sensations. Ordinary females have a female body represented in their cortex so they would not have phantom penis experiences.<br /><br />2. Three of the 29 FtMs had postoperative phantom breast sensations. The breasts are typically removed as part of the transgender process. In the general population of women, 33% experience phantom breast sensations after mastectomy.<br /><br />Why do the FtMs have such a low rate of phantom breast (only 10%), while in the general population it is 33%? The implication is that fewer transgender FtMs have breasts represented in their somatosensory cortex to begin with, so when the breasts are removed, there are no phantoms.<br /><br />3. Among MtF transgender subjects, 30% experienced a phantom penis after penectomy. Based on published studies of penectomy, such as for malignancy, in the general population, 58% of men experience a phantom penis after the organ is removed.<br /><br />Why would only 30% of men experience a phantom penis in the MtF group? Presumably, that group includes more men who did not have a penis represented in their somatosensory cortex in the first place, so when the organ was removed, they did not experience a phantom.<br /><br />Taken together, these findings suggest that a person’s body concept and gender identity are strongly influenced by the neurological mapping of the somatosensory cortex. In the case of transgender individuals, it looks like the brain representation may have a stronger influence than even a lifetime of gender socialization and personal experience living in that body.<br /><br />Regardless of the plain facts of their bodies and the advice of their social community, transgender individuals undergo enormous anxiety, trauma, risk and expense to get their body morphology lined up with their brain circuits.<br /><br />This research seems to support the notion that when it comes to gender identity, anatomy is destiny – brain anatomy, not sexual morphology. And it seemingly refutes the idea that gender identity is merely a learned set of social attitudes and behaviors, as some philosophers have argued (e.g., Butler, 1990, 1993).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">References:</span><br />Butler, J. (1990). <span style="font-style: italic;">Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity</span>. New York: Routledge.<br /><br />Butler, J. (1993). <span style="font-style: italic;">Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'. </span>New York: Routledge.<br /><br />Conway. L. (2002). How Frequently Does Transsexualism Occur? Retrieved from http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html on March 5, 2008.<br /><br />Ramachandran, V.S., & McGeoch, P. D. (2008). Phantom penises in transsexuals: evidence of an innate gender-specific body image in the brain. <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal of Consciousness Studies</span>, 15 (1), 5-16.<br /><br />Ramachandran, V. S.; D. C. Rogers-Ramachandran & M. Stewart (1992), "Perceptual correlates of massive cortical reorganization.", <span style="font-style: italic;">Science</span> (no. 258(5085)): 1159-1160</style="text-align:left;">Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-23973046574977284492009-01-07T18:08:00.001-08:002009-01-07T18:29:36.243-08:00Thinking is the Best Way to Travel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDj2W-j_0-wYkQoKcGuK4OFBrm7WaP9uSi6fkHTK9dE_eEWjA9deEEhI8G9bbJ8OJIpu9jeO9ZLnIa6MvJGANpWwmmEBOtn8aWbUqJqS-1sZWD8-NiGZHAorHJcIetADpVwKFS/s1600-h/Gliese_436_Tiny_RGB.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDj2W-j_0-wYkQoKcGuK4OFBrm7WaP9uSi6fkHTK9dE_eEWjA9deEEhI8G9bbJ8OJIpu9jeO9ZLnIa6MvJGANpWwmmEBOtn8aWbUqJqS-1sZWD8-NiGZHAorHJcIetADpVwKFS/s320/Gliese_436_Tiny_RGB.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288740031482690946" border="0" /></a>A recent science article reported that the first earthlike extrasolar planet has been found. An exoplanet is one that orbits a star other than our sun. All exoplanets found up to now have been giant gas balls like Jupiter. This new one, Gliese 436b, is rocky, like earth, and could possibly have water, like earth. Those two criteria make it “earthlike” under an extremely generous interpretation.<br /><br />We need to identify earthlike planets rather soon, since it will become necessary for us to find a new planet if the species is to survive. Current plans call for us to colonize the moon, then Mars. But those are extremely harsh environments, not likely to be long-term bolt-holes for our species. Wouldn’t it be nice to find another planet, rather like Earth, where you did not have to wear a pressurized radiation suit and could play baseball outdoors? Gliese could be the “New Earth.”<br /><br />The trouble is, Gliese is 20 light years away. If we could travel at the speed of light, some 386,000 miles each second, it would take 20 years to get there. Unfortunately we can travel only about 5 miles a second in spacecraft like the Shuttle (18,000 mph). So it would take us over 200,000 years at top speed to reach Gliese.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLg23y5icCksVqASEfiqsKKfHNb2FPa7_O49ibjcCYXoZvpjYnZLuLK8FmrTQf7p-z9-L1GAACqhoFUEayPA6OLoahhi3GAG3W_AcpBn7g54RZdXwuG2oCUjO4yIhvARJ3KnH/s1600-h/spacecraft1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 218px; height: 147px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLg23y5icCksVqASEfiqsKKfHNb2FPa7_O49ibjcCYXoZvpjYnZLuLK8FmrTQf7p-z9-L1GAACqhoFUEayPA6OLoahhi3GAG3W_AcpBn7g54RZdXwuG2oCUjO4yIhvARJ3KnH/s320/spacecraft1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288740175360593986" border="0" /></a>Even allowing for improvements in transportation technology, it seems doubtful that humans will ever travel at a speed sufficient to reach the extrasolar stars. It would be great if someone could just command, “Warp factor five, Mr. Sulu,” but there is no warp factor.<br /><br />How frustrating it is, to be facing our demise on this planet, to discover an Earth-like planet where we could be comfortable, and yet have no way to cross the great ocean of space!<br /><br />I thought of four ways to attempt the journey.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoNk5z5F-floxUERN__A6uoztQ6Ccrq3SYvVkQbdTd0KMqKMx9_gQr2Pl1UE1gGMZ8hwYA5wTuacaDZk_CMVvb3RXdYjKceMo4a7t5QmGtg9PbHBfg9r92Qv5ZYaZsNv18YgJ/s1600-h/martian2bcity2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 233px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoNk5z5F-floxUERN__A6uoztQ6Ccrq3SYvVkQbdTd0KMqKMx9_gQr2Pl1UE1gGMZ8hwYA5wTuacaDZk_CMVvb3RXdYjKceMo4a7t5QmGtg9PbHBfg9r92Qv5ZYaZsNv18YgJ/s320/martian2bcity2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288740402898311234" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. The Colony</span><br />One way would be to go in a flying colony like the space station, only much larger. During the voyage, everyone who left earth would die, but their children would continue the voyage, and after many thousands of generations, the distant descendants of the original crew would land on Gliese. <br /><br />The constancy of the spacecraft would prevent natural selection from morphing the travelers into some other kind of animal. Inbreeding would become severe however, so there would have to be enough genetic technology on board to maintain the genetic mix and to tamp down harmful mutations.<br /><br />But psychology is a bigger problem. In order for each generation of voyagers to grow up with a normal human mind, they would need the social infrastructure necessary for socialization, from teachers to police, from doctors and farmers to entertainers and politicians. It would never work. It’s just barely working now, on our spaceship planet of 6 billion people. It is unimaginable that a band of twenty, or even a few hundred space travelers could survive in a metal can for a hundred thousand generations.<br /><br />A possible fix for the psychology problem would be to plug everyone into virtual reality environments for all that time. We do not know exactly what would be needed for the virtual reality, but maybe someday we will. However, body functions would still have to be bodily, not virtual, especially reproduction, birth and death. It would be complicated.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2fmupnNl8MRHVBaaQ5XZxUIMxfrBRh38Qnf0uffgDLCkXXSWBaRVyjhMZfaPLNTJ-a8MBExuDaJqXEph5BdKIakXMebjSxBcwP6mc9YALhlx73gwImW3XIiRZUdno8OD8uVk/s1600-h/Cryogenics.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 189px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2fmupnNl8MRHVBaaQ5XZxUIMxfrBRh38Qnf0uffgDLCkXXSWBaRVyjhMZfaPLNTJ-a8MBExuDaJqXEph5BdKIakXMebjSxBcwP6mc9YALhlx73gwImW3XIiRZUdno8OD8uVk/s320/Cryogenics.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288739371571973074" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Cryogenics</span><br />The second idea is cryogenics. Could the travelers simply be put into suspended animation for the duration of the trip? That is not possible today, but it is a conceivable technology. However, from what we know of modern technology, the probability that an autonomous life support system would function properly for a continuous quarter of a billion years is essentially nil. So forget that idea.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1RiZbMK2_ojv68oPRsm9zuiLb4LaiLXRmu7xLPSEGp1aF8dZno5CPIWZjphCdAr9uln-Ug-Y2gEkymKZvhCgwhfEluLYmsvKmqcQsQMPDojBtWdePZL322N_YCE1IvDsMwST/s1600-h/hello_dave.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 174px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1RiZbMK2_ojv68oPRsm9zuiLb4LaiLXRmu7xLPSEGp1aF8dZno5CPIWZjphCdAr9uln-Ug-Y2gEkymKZvhCgwhfEluLYmsvKmqcQsQMPDojBtWdePZL322N_YCE1IvDsMwST/s320/hello_dave.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288740833226154434" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Robots</span><br />What about robots? If we could make robots that could survive a journey of 200,000 years, that would be quite an achievement, but what would be the reward for us? We’d all be dead long before any robot got even a fraction of the way to Gliese. If global warming or nuclear war didn’t get us, then reversal of the magnetosphere surely would. Surviving cockroaches, if they eventually evolved the intelligence to think of it, would not even know we had ever sent robots. There would be no mental connection between the robotic voyagers and any humans. The robots might survive, but who would care? Not the robots.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOR2KrxpzwlmbTdAlPUWS5NTzzRvvcd38f3S62rzhOZSv8F5Yf8xQE8buC2z6x_tHSnWuZ3ignJ73oyzSpnSkHvfQ-4gd8YmzOKWXIvjC4CYbWiMy5llGndJYBWSoetYlm40ck/s1600-h/Dave.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOR2KrxpzwlmbTdAlPUWS5NTzzRvvcd38f3S62rzhOZSv8F5Yf8xQE8buC2z6x_tHSnWuZ3ignJ73oyzSpnSkHvfQ-4gd8YmzOKWXIvjC4CYbWiMy5llGndJYBWSoetYlm40ck/s320/Dave.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288742304767551330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Return-Only Travel</span><br />The limiting factor in space travel is the human body; its mortality and its frailty. There is no way to overcome those limitations for the very great times and distances required, so don’t even try. The only way to travel those vast distances is without any sort of body, robotic or biologic. We have to broaden what it means “to travel.” It must involve something other than moving meat through space.<br /><br />We could think our way to Gliese. We would need a new mode of cognition for that, one in which we recede from the intellect and the imagination to a primordial consciousness prior to individual personality, call it Groupcon-1<br /><br />Our bodies make us individuals because no two physical things can be in the same place at the same time. That guarantees psychological individuality. But Groupcon-1 is not an individual consciousness, so it requires no body. Death becomes irrelevant, as does life, because those are biological concepts. In Groupcon-1 you exist in a state prior to biology. You are immortal, but you don’t know that, since you have no individual consciousness.<br /><br />Is there actually such a mental state as Groupcon-1? There might be. In normal consciousness we are aware of phenomena like deep empathy, in which we temporarily lose our individual consciousness while we inhabit another’s. Something similar happens while watching a movie or reading a good novel. You temporarily forget yourself, lose yourself and your body, inhabit some fictional world and fictional characters created by the author. During those moments, the reality of your physical body and the physical world around you are temporarily nonexistent, from your own point of view.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkbv9qofjbpgJgGqBOe4q-zkWKKkzk4vqBUNrPltYgC2eh3pZotUnburNTvRmrrXQR6KTargZiNByMtoVsNFOGcbbOiWIadbXSIvsi9CSN2IXsJ4NwGomfElRy12CYRbiWbT7/s1600-h/meditation.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 175px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkbv9qofjbpgJgGqBOe4q-zkWKKkzk4vqBUNrPltYgC2eh3pZotUnburNTvRmrrXQR6KTargZiNByMtoVsNFOGcbbOiWIadbXSIvsi9CSN2IXsJ4NwGomfElRy12CYRbiWbT7/s320/meditation.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288741932899900050" border="0" /></a>So the trick is to understand the state of Groupcon-1 until it can be sustained for long periods of time. There are mental techniques for doing that now but they work only for a few hours. Still, it is not inconceivable that Groupcon-1 could become one’s main state of consciousness rather than just a mental curiosity. Anyone who could do it would be free of the body and physical distances.<br /><br />But how would Groupcon-1 get us to Gliese? It wouldn’t, because when you are in Groupcon-1, you are located exactly nowhere because you have no body and no individual mind. It would be necessary to become skilled at moving between Groupcon-1 and individual, embodied consciousness in order to enjoy the benefits of being located in space and time with an individual consciousness. Since we are coming from nothing and nowhere, into somewhere, we would be free, in principle, to specify the somewhere into which we arrive.<br /><br />So let the specification of the new somewhere be Gliese 436b, modified as necessary to be compatible with our individual bodies and lifestyles. In essence then, one never travels to Gliese, but rather, one only returns to Gliese as if one had been away. We return to Gliese from Groupcon-1.<br /><br />So that is how we will get to Gliese, not in a spaceship, not through a wormhole, not with a warp drive engine, but by return-only travel.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-43398866749950980852008-12-15T18:26:00.001-08:002008-12-28T09:24:41.529-08:00What would Q-tips look like if we had three ears?<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbu7VEjCo8lWw1EEd1qwWLW3qZUap6FvkM4PccygObqoWK7jkPdoGHdjmzkspStx2cDN0E-vfqwHQ89NuL9wfj3eUj6-DKhJ-USpt57HJ3RhDJ38i6rE77VK3IMGg_z1TG6ku/s1600-h/Q-tip.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 175px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbu7VEjCo8lWw1EEd1qwWLW3qZUap6FvkM4PccygObqoWK7jkPdoGHdjmzkspStx2cDN0E-vfqwHQ89NuL9wfj3eUj6-DKhJ-USpt57HJ3RhDJ38i6rE77VK3IMGg_z1TG6ku/s320/Q-tip.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280208849848533138" border="0" /></a>A Q-tip is a remarkable invention. It is a paper stalk with cotton batting on each end. They are sold by the millions, perhaps the hundreds of millions. The box lists all kinds of interesting uses for them, such as cleaning your computer keyboard. But we all know what they are really for: cleaning out the ears. For that they are excellent.<br /><br />I find it particularly felicitous that there is a cotton tip at each end of the stalk, for a total of two, and we happen to have exactly two ears that need cleaning! What are the odds of that?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeWxXDdKC20V7pSIzTlfW8qXWJoRWjydb10zjdeqH9-ZhSgUNzTPaBnoiyTjQy0Sz91QKYepb5GB1HK-HXDvxC81f8FpxDDDQsLQ8CpV1UvlNKcMfqyATz3LWJIvK2PZazHspd/s1600-h/three+eared+rabbit.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeWxXDdKC20V7pSIzTlfW8qXWJoRWjydb10zjdeqH9-ZhSgUNzTPaBnoiyTjQy0Sz91QKYepb5GB1HK-HXDvxC81f8FpxDDDQsLQ8CpV1UvlNKcMfqyATz3LWJIvK2PZazHspd/s320/three+eared+rabbit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280209114727287890" border="0" /></a>What if we had three ears? I don’t think Q-tips would sell very well then, because you would need a minimum of two Q-tips to do the job and would end up throwing away one of the Q-tips having used only one end of it. It just would not seem right and I don’t think people would use Q-tips so readily.<br /><br />So someone would have to come up with a three-headed Q-tip, which is not inconceivable, but no matter what it looked like, it simply would not be as elegant as the simple double-ended Q-tip we enjoy today. It would cost a lot more to produce and would never work as well.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAdisIfEMjsHCk_olhH7uerLJhu3B4C5widlO4ZpoMqFNalZKSYdTjAlTiIhJTbIQeTkukbdx9ooO_dylvJiizHIT837wHLcsWYZSGA3PUVnZ3ZZ1zG-L1p0iM8HqFz46pQNR/s1600-h/ears1.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 176px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAdisIfEMjsHCk_olhH7uerLJhu3B4C5widlO4ZpoMqFNalZKSYdTjAlTiIhJTbIQeTkukbdx9ooO_dylvJiizHIT837wHLcsWYZSGA3PUVnZ3ZZ1zG-L1p0iM8HqFz46pQNR/s320/ears1.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280210858463466802" border="0" /></a>Having two ears is technically useful, especially when they are separated by the distance of the head, as in our case. That allows good echolocation, finding the source of a sound in space. You could do it with one ear, as a rotating or oscillating radar dish does, but that is technically complicated. You could have one fixed ear and scan it by moving your head from side to side, but you can’t move your head at the speed of sound, so precision would suffer. You would simply miss a lot of sounds.<br /><br />Having a third ear would not give you any particular advantage over the two you already have, and would complicate the wiring quite a bit. The evolutionary cost would be high for very little gain.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJNStc_x7Ou0BNm-cqdWKPMnWmBQh7XyS9tLdPTrFen6lFlEliK4a8srRUn6PlVaX-m4rJKKt4jjgdcliD4I3zqz8s19d7hYrj_tax8Ni0Lho9jr6GHe-zufiJ0o11dLEOSQG/s1600-h/3-tip-gif.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 128px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJNStc_x7Ou0BNm-cqdWKPMnWmBQh7XyS9tLdPTrFen6lFlEliK4a8srRUn6PlVaX-m4rJKKt4jjgdcliD4I3zqz8s19d7hYrj_tax8Ni0Lho9jr6GHe-zufiJ0o11dLEOSQG/s320/3-tip-gif.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280209735820379922" border="0" /></a>So it turns out that two ears is just right: elegant, simple, economical, efficient. Just like a Q-tip, but for different reasons.<br /><br />Bilateral symmetry in a body does not seem very complicated. The double helix itself is bilaterally symmetrical. So if you’re going to have one ear, you might as well have two. The incremental cost is negligible. But three is too many.<br /><br />It just happens that a stick has two ends, so each end of a Q-tip can have a cotton swab. There is no a priori reason why that topological fact about sticks should fit so nicely with the symmetry of our developmental morphology.<br /><br />There are a lot of forms in nature that are not stick-shaped, like loops and branches and ovals. Stick shapes are not terribly common. And of the stick shapes, many, like tails and antennae, do not have two free ends. And even of those that do have two free ends, the ends may not be symmetrical, as in a picked flower or a femur.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp7HYGHD2LcUfDcjWazgoskMVh5Hx202JPX-wpEIptVZ7XMWebN1xuyGE0MSkEZhoujFW0mWTMlmmoDA_GWiynIYKLOwv6V-nkTv6q-Co-bXJYKmhcrxNsV3tfG67QSCgYxed/s1600-h/qtips.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp7HYGHD2LcUfDcjWazgoskMVh5Hx202JPX-wpEIptVZ7XMWebN1xuyGE0MSkEZhoujFW0mWTMlmmoDA_GWiynIYKLOwv6V-nkTv6q-Co-bXJYKmhcrxNsV3tfG67QSCgYxed/s320/qtips.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280210242605640546" border="0" /></a>There is something non-obvious, even paradoxical, about purpose-built devices for the body. The body allows expression of human intentionality and yet we are perfectly capable of objectifying it to make devices like eyeglasses that hook over the ears. Convenient!<br /><br />What good would t-shirts be if we didn’t have shoulders? Would scissors ever have existed if our thumbs weren’t just as they are? And isn’t it amazing that Q-tips have exactly two tips! Who thought of that?<br /><br />We should appreciate Q-tips more for the elegant design they illustrate.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-49344964696980775882008-10-26T18:16:00.000-07:002008-11-14T12:40:26.787-08:00Why the World Owes Me One Day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKzxYVc5y5xxuvVywHz6RpunMPiRYL7b9d7d6frYJWX64h-r4frsy56Y_qbB8_WfoYZysOZTln56nc4KK0L8ezpfWbwffc5EiTlN24J537ZMcTrIzaWDbIOeJUuS_okdxa7wU/s1600-h/international_dateline+%282%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 196px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKzxYVc5y5xxuvVywHz6RpunMPiRYL7b9d7d6frYJWX64h-r4frsy56Y_qbB8_WfoYZysOZTln56nc4KK0L8ezpfWbwffc5EiTlN24J537ZMcTrIzaWDbIOeJUuS_okdxa7wU/s320/international_dateline+%282%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268615814789943090" border="0" /></a>Some time ago I flew from San Francisco to Tokyo, crossing the international date line. It was Friday morning when I left and it was Saturday afternoon when I arrived, even though the flight was only about 12 hours. I lost a calendar day, as one does when crossing the dateline going west. Normally, you would re-gain that day on the return trip and everything would be fine.<br /><br />But I kept going west. I went to Beijing, then Bangkok, New Delhi, and Mumbai. This all took a year or so. Continuing west for another year, I was in Istanbul, Sophia, Rome, and Frankfurt. I finally returned to the U.S. by flying from London to New York, and from there, back to Seattle on the west coast.<br /><br />When I arrived home, I realized I never got that original day back that I lost going across the dateline. I had been robbed.<br /><br />When I am on my deathbed and the grim reaper is nigh, I will have a legitimate protest: Wait! You can't take me now! The world owes me one more day!Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-47003991176479376862008-11-14T12:19:00.001-08:002008-11-14T12:29:28.640-08:00What is Introspection?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8SxmPtIN85YMnx9DHKnq_AmHVFu8e91xTFeTCWJIWGoDpFyfRdYApPOJqYapQBQ8pqMoK51xnRC4D_QlXxoOLIXsujrBJs28siLAP6DW4e5pvdZef_lCcjT6zCnlQOMGgSBv/s1600-h/Poor+Yorick.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 258px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8SxmPtIN85YMnx9DHKnq_AmHVFu8e91xTFeTCWJIWGoDpFyfRdYApPOJqYapQBQ8pqMoK51xnRC4D_QlXxoOLIXsujrBJs28siLAP6DW4e5pvdZef_lCcjT6zCnlQOMGgSBv/s320/Poor+Yorick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268611431768949074" border="0" /></a>The fact that I can be aware of my own thoughts is preposterous. How is it possible? Is my cup aware that it is a cup? Is the coffee aware that it is hot and brown? Of course not.<br /><br />Why should I be aware of what I am thinking? That is not reasonable. Nor could it have been predicted by any scientific observation. It is utterly perplexing.<br /><br />There are many philosophical and quasi-scientific explanations of introspection. One is to deny that introspection is actually a fact. That eliminates a large anomaly from the purview of the scientific explanation of the world, but at the expense of self-contradiction. Introspection is required to understand what is being denied.<br /><br />Another explanation is that one part of the brain becomes aware of another part of the brain, so really, introspection is just brain activity, completely physical. Beside the awkward fact that there is no scientific evidence for this hypothesis (nor could there be, since “awareness” is not a scientifically defined function of brains), this proposed solution does not answer the original question. I am a person, not a brain. It is I who have the introspective thoughts. If my brain also does a little introspecting on the side, so be it. Perhaps my liver introspects also. It wouldn’t matter to me.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwdVbDqKKLptgV4p2uIsqFygbgKaIYqhD7hGBfPjk1OMd3GSHBNbaZnzLBhNvOY_YCH_hKYviWrfb99I8RtPM9sJ_JR0sprGbyz3IXWwKpEkBkQ2FXvlg6MwmtgPXyObXiCxJU/s1600-h/magritte-notrepro.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 179px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwdVbDqKKLptgV4p2uIsqFygbgKaIYqhD7hGBfPjk1OMd3GSHBNbaZnzLBhNvOY_YCH_hKYviWrfb99I8RtPM9sJ_JR0sprGbyz3IXWwKpEkBkQ2FXvlg6MwmtgPXyObXiCxJU/s320/magritte-notrepro.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268612193821605362" border="0" /></a>What if we set aside self-contradictory and confused biological explanations of introspection, and consider only the mental experience? What is the experience of introspection?<br /><br />We don’t introspect every minute of every day. On the contrary. Most of the time we are focused on the world, not on our own thoughts. But when we are focused on our own thoughts, what is going on? Who is focused on what? If I am the thoughts, who is looking at them? If I am the witness to the thoughts, who is in charge of the thoughts? I am pretty sure there is only one me.<br /><br />This is one of the most profound mysteries confronting humanity.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-5788826543382581572008-10-03T11:54:00.000-07:002008-10-08T13:48:01.324-07:00Sensorimotor Dreams FAQ<span style="font-weight: bold;">These questions and answers concern "sensorimotor dreams" the most common type, which are also the foundation of social dreams.<br /><br />What Causes Dreams?</span><br /><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YEWQWeq1YHeHp73k7dpAWZZngKPEJScNFaO4mmQI8qS2xoT4i1BvARqkYQPNsnxX9NHFF5jqsR-TUB8JtvPeTumqKxTHDh-d1UbVgYBm8TyddJn82gRjuHyeEGiVfT4OHtbY/s1600-h/sleep_cycle1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YEWQWeq1YHeHp73k7dpAWZZngKPEJScNFaO4mmQI8qS2xoT4i1BvARqkYQPNsnxX9NHFF5jqsR-TUB8JtvPeTumqKxTHDh-d1UbVgYBm8TyddJn82gRjuHyeEGiVfT4OHtbY/s320/sleep_cycle1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253004216843621858" border="0" /></a>During REM sleep, an area in the brainstem called the pons becomes active, causing the eyes to move about. Some researchers (e.g., Alan Hobson) believe that the pons activity is random and has no intrinsic meaning or purpose.<br /><br />The pons is connected to the sensorimotor cortex at the top-center of the brain, and activates neural circuits there for basic sensorimotor behavior, such as reaching, walking, and moving the eyes.<br /><br />The sensorimotor activation is not strong enough to cause actual bodily movement (other than in the eyes), or actual sensations, but it is strong enough to be experienced by the dreamer as reaching, walking, looking, and so on, and that is the dream: experience of random activity in the sensorimotor cortex.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why do dreams seem meaningful?</span><br />Dreams seem meaningful because when you remember them you are awake, at least awake enough to say, "Wow, what a dream! I dreamed I was ..." When we are awake, we seek meaning and we find it. That's why there is a face on the moon -- we do not like random, meaningless patterns, and especially not random, meaningless experience.<br /><br />As we recall the dream experience, we invest it with emotional and social significance. The process is like creative story telling. A list of the brain areas that were activated would be like a list of random paragraphs. But in recalling the dream events, we make them into a (more-or-less) meaningful story.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What is the meaning of this dream?</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDqUt7wZTuZwlojfOpNkB0sluBWJs311SZpWnXn4JQm1MSj9IuADYFK6H6-xzgT5hU51PdusRMqZ9K96LGQ9w_QhSjDpmFyNRQwbLx6U90hNc3sEtJDU6LTmmQ7Inb0__sksT/s1600-h/Brain-R.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDqUt7wZTuZwlojfOpNkB0sluBWJs311SZpWnXn4JQm1MSj9IuADYFK6H6-xzgT5hU51PdusRMqZ9K96LGQ9w_QhSjDpmFyNRQwbLx6U90hNc3sEtJDU6LTmmQ7Inb0__sksT/s320/Brain-R.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253004512089220690" border="0" /></a>The source of the dream has no more meaning than a burp, because it originated from some brain circuits that became lightly activated as part of an automatic bodily process. But the dream <span style="font-style: italic;">report </span>has all the personal meaning that any story you made up would have. As a creative product it reflects your interests, experiences and concerns, whether those are explicitly acknowledged by you or not.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do most dreams have sexual or aggressive meaning? </span><br />There are basic brain circuits for sexual or aggressive acts, and these might have been activated during REM sleep, which you would have experienced as sexual or aggressive urges. In the same way, if you have an empty stomach or a full bladder, you might experience those in a dream as food scenes or as swimming in the ocean. You provide detail as you create the dream story at recall.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do certain dream images have fixed symbolic meaning? </span><br />Certain images or thoughts have commonly recognized meaning because they are well-known cultural images. You don’t need an unconscious id or superego dreamwork for a sexual interpretation of a train plunging into a dark tunnel. It's a common image suitable to describe having experienced activation of a sexual arousal circuit. However there is no justification for most interpretations listed in books of dream symbols.<br /><br />Does dreaming of spiders mean you fear being engulfed by your mother? There is no necessary connection. However, brain activation of tactile (touch) receptors on the skin could appear in a dream report in any number of expressive ways, including feeling enveloped, smothered, hugged, or covered in spiders.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Are dreams the royal road to the unconscious?</span><br />Analysis of dream reports can reveal hidden motives, attitudes and beliefs of the dreamer, but so can analysis and discussion of TAT stories (Thematic Apperception Test) and Rorschach (“inkblot”) responses, artistic products of all kinds, and even ordinary conversation. Dream reports may be fertile for this kind of exploration because they are typically recorded when the author is not fully awake, but they are not any more "royal" than any other creative product.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why can I fly in my dreams but not in real life?</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHP0v1soVjqdTHyf1CUTiVYUrZYQHp_4tpPo9D4uVf3rpqS4gOajL7Q14BvyRigyNMtfRtDoHGRtnfjmDDy8UnjZ2rjVFUmd_nnQ-e7zCNdz4umT8GIOvSKk0HlijabjzL2RaF/s1600-h/Minerva.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHP0v1soVjqdTHyf1CUTiVYUrZYQHp_4tpPo9D4uVf3rpqS4gOajL7Q14BvyRigyNMtfRtDoHGRtnfjmDDy8UnjZ2rjVFUmd_nnQ-e7zCNdz4umT8GIOvSKk0HlijabjzL2RaF/s320/Minerva.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253006053637019794" border="0" /></a>The dream story tries to accommodate the feelings of lightly activated brain circuits. If an activated sensorimotor pattern involves movement in space, then coordinated visual input would change accordingly. Sensorimotor patterns are interconnected in that way. But that particular complex of sensorimotor pathways might not involve any activation associated with walking or running, for example.<br /><br />So how is the awake self, constrained by reality, supposed to interpret this vague dream experience? “I feel like I moved from Point A to Point B, and the perceptual scenery changed appropriately as I moved, but I didn’t walk or drive, or bicycle or swim. I don’t know how I did it. So I must have flown.” That is the most direct and “logical” explanation consistent with the “memory” (feeling) of the dream-activated sensorimotor circuit.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why are dreams bizarre and irrational?</span><br />Dream reports are bizarre and irrational because they are waking fabrications constrained by the real world that attempt to articulate correlations between sensori and motor patterns felt in the brain. The dream story tries to flesh out a narrative from those minimal patterns and the result is like trying to construct a sonata from random groups of notes. The result is not likely to have much structural integrity, but might be creative and amusing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is it true that every dream is two dreams?</span><br />Yes. As psychoanalysts have said since Freud, every dream consists of the manifest dream report, and under that, the latent dream. The purpose of dream analysis is to use the manifest to understand the latent. But that process is no different in principle from how we analyze an utterance into its surface and deep structures or deconstruct an essay into its implicit meanings. Every human communication and social artifact has at least two levels: the manifest, realized product, and its latent, underlying intent. A dream report, as a creative product, is no exception.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do we dream in color or black-and-white?</span><br />Neither. Dreams are attempts to explain certain bodily feelings, those of lightly activated brain circuits. Brain circuits have no color. It is completely dark inside the skull. However, the dream report might use either color or monochromatic imagery as appropriate in its construction.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why can’t I remember my dreams?</span><br />What you have are feelings of lightly activated brain circuits at certain times of night. If you are not willing or able to conceptualize those into imaginative stories, then there are no dreams.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is a dream a message from another dimension?</span><br />No, it is a complete fabrication of your own, formulated around dim experience of some lightly activated brain circuits.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Can I have a dream that does not belong to me?</span><br />Not unless you have circuits in your brain that don’t belong to you. However, you might construct a dream report using elements from public stories.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-41578908989064430332008-07-16T17:19:00.000-07:002008-09-24T12:23:12.830-07:00Is Monotheism Obsolete?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBixpgCwnXLsFfcF1pewDlZzDG4-4bsOnmFlZ4I0NvhHAUeWFiwz78Fp0a4kuct1rh8-b_27Yh1A4k8VPPQNoVNfit_wvSNN20aGGI63dOaZUiEhUFlmgW_8ezzDxmPyj0z68S/s1600-h/cowboy+sunset+.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBixpgCwnXLsFfcF1pewDlZzDG4-4bsOnmFlZ4I0NvhHAUeWFiwz78Fp0a4kuct1rh8-b_27Yh1A4k8VPPQNoVNfit_wvSNN20aGGI63dOaZUiEhUFlmgW_8ezzDxmPyj0z68S/s320/cowboy+sunset+.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223785074000818290" border="0" /></a>If we are created in God’s image, and we believe that God is a self-sufficient individual, then so are we. That is how the myth of radical human individualism arose. Monotheism prompts us to see ourselves not merely as “the chosen people” (party to the covenant), but as individuals, self-contained, self-motivated, self-determining monads, just like God, in whose image we are created.<br /><br />This myth of the individual has flourished and persisted to this day. It dominates Western philosophy, science, and psychology, especially cognitive psychology, which tries to explain the human psyche in terms of each person’s individual brain. But that’s not who we are.<br /><br />The glorification of the individual psyche has been a mistake derived from monotheism. Put away the myth and look at the facts. The defining feature of the human psyche is that it is social. We are intensely social animals. We live with, for, and through each other. We cannot live without each other.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfY2kttJS8QKMh_XmMXIHRuyv2XuAqcGn_8chUa2ya8bKp1UcJ621UHxyv2ifALUGhQTrVf_c1y8dIgBDyRQS_tVRTQECRrJil4ebb0bWoaqwgUzrhxawqrysOWA0msIOTCTm/s1600-h/three+people+talking.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfY2kttJS8QKMh_XmMXIHRuyv2XuAqcGn_8chUa2ya8bKp1UcJ621UHxyv2ifALUGhQTrVf_c1y8dIgBDyRQS_tVRTQECRrJil4ebb0bWoaqwgUzrhxawqrysOWA0msIOTCTm/s320/three+people+talking.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223785959348415458" border="0" /></a>Language is a social invention, and to the extent that thought depends on language and linguistically based logic and conceptualization, thought is social. Even our most private and personal introspections and prayers, are social because we have internalized the image of the community and the thought processes given to us by the community.<br /><br />It is not possible for a human being to live outside of human society. Sure, we can point to the lone monk on a mountaintop or the isolated recluse living in a forest. And what about Robinson Crusoe? But these are not true loners.<br /><br />Through the decades-long process of socialization, one internalizes the language, values, assumptions, and concepts of one’s culture. The hermit on a mountaintop still has his language, memories, internal dialogs, and maybe books. He is still intensely social. The Unabomber was a recluse who shunned all society and lived alone in the forest. Except that he sent bombs to people, which is a social act. And when captured, his greatest wish was to publish a “manifesto” of his belief system. He was a nut, but an intensely social nut.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxc0igBnRuSuwGimGRsyl718voQ0_3PbLEoDtSeADNAbh7D5u0LvmLwZfWx8qyyznuQpQSk1qkRk2kxiNIhOnswcaadhLUm19ZF2yW3DuY3-X2k3MnPzs-aSGRUtXb17YkOz3I/s1600-h/Crusoe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxc0igBnRuSuwGimGRsyl718voQ0_3PbLEoDtSeADNAbh7D5u0LvmLwZfWx8qyyznuQpQSk1qkRk2kxiNIhOnswcaadhLUm19ZF2yW3DuY3-X2k3MnPzs-aSGRUtXb17YkOz3I/s320/Crusoe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223786167772424482" border="0" /></a>Robinson Crusoe? It’s a good thing his man Friday showed up or Crusoe would have eventually lost his mind. The internalized social community gradually fades away if it is not reinforced with new social interaction. After a time, Crusoe wouldn’t have had a thought in his head. He would have been reduced to a foraging animal, a human in outer form only. Perhaps De Foe knew that.<br /><br />Children who are abandoned at an early age do not experience the years of socialization that create an internal representation of their social community. When such feral children are recovered by society, they are human in name and form only. They typically have no language, show no human emotion or understanding, and of course, know nothing of the ways of human society.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvLLN1LTk4bhVKgJcc-gxOXwwdqlLf9yKBI6pcw3jlQjHfS54NK3Fz_pPCKB_vcLw5bnkh7G0PswkrNdHjDWCZMM_HxAiN9eRzzZ50-P0aO6vvmzG8XhS1bIGcIuE-CR1jIwzm/s1600-h/1205_laughingmatters_feature.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 201px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvLLN1LTk4bhVKgJcc-gxOXwwdqlLf9yKBI6pcw3jlQjHfS54NK3Fz_pPCKB_vcLw5bnkh7G0PswkrNdHjDWCZMM_HxAiN9eRzzZ50-P0aO6vvmzG8XhS1bIGcIuE-CR1jIwzm/s320/1205_laughingmatters_feature.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223787351191654290" border="0" /></a>We are, above all other traits, social beings, intersubjectively linked to each other’s minds from our birth into a community. If we are created in God’s image, it follows that God must be similarly social in nature. Which implies a community of gods, not just one. Given the evidence, polytheism looks like a more reasonable idea than monotheism.<br /><br />What are the implications of this conclusion? They remain to be worked out. I don’t think we should automatically assume a Greek or Hindu pantheon. We should develop our understanding of polytheism based on our peculiarly modern, Western ways of thinking.<br /><br />But at least we can say that the doctrine of the cognitive monad can be set aside in favor of a more realistic psychology of intersubjectivity. And on the moral front, we can dispense with the absolutist thinking that derives from monotheism and which causes so much human grief. The implications for structured religion and Western society, are, of course, profound.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24482246.post-24301858247066680432008-09-24T07:53:00.000-07:002008-09-24T08:00:06.177-07:00Why It Is Better Not To Know Italian<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DYRGl8HbYRjPav5QXLTKA7WePwnBXHnSi5Lg3-RTNkNOVpt-2lqB0IMUKKhnRLRoPW3J6pNV91DAP0-NFWKKWTxoIJ6oTgtQrxwpmUIPytm_biM-YbM9FLsXKK0TZmIkTiSD/s1600-h/laboheme.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 161px; height: 233px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DYRGl8HbYRjPav5QXLTKA7WePwnBXHnSi5Lg3-RTNkNOVpt-2lqB0IMUKKhnRLRoPW3J6pNV91DAP0-NFWKKWTxoIJ6oTgtQrxwpmUIPytm_biM-YbM9FLsXKK0TZmIkTiSD/s320/laboheme.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5249601366006623922" border="0" /></a>Puccini’s opera, <span style="font-style: italic;">La Boheme</span>, includes some of the most beautiful songs ever written. I am especially fond of the arias and duet early in the play, when the starving writer, Rodolfo meets the waif, Mimi in his hovel. The romantic music and lyrics are enough to make anyone swoon. I don’t understand any Italian, but for some reason, that does not matter with music as fine as this.<br /><br />However, I recently made the terrible mistake of looking up the English translation of the lyrics. What the two characters are actually saying (singing) to each other is depressingly banal. Rodolfo is saying something like, “Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Wanna blow this joint and grab some beers?”<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCvRRFBTv9pGiAPs24jGs4Cn_MW1qdGpko1wHVlZ6fuKZv_sNtV04plxZeHOMBKtFRRKQuXlCUFWcW49S2tyvSbBNf3YUZKX2QlShQRYLXY5h4jbBL1qPRTGL7_lJxjJZk69u/s1600-h/Rodolfo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 245px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCvRRFBTv9pGiAPs24jGs4Cn_MW1qdGpko1wHVlZ6fuKZv_sNtV04plxZeHOMBKtFRRKQuXlCUFWcW49S2tyvSbBNf3YUZKX2QlShQRYLXY5h4jbBL1qPRTGL7_lJxjJZk69u/s320/Rodolfo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5249601902876373410" border="0" /></a>That’s not a literal translation, but it conveys the sense of how utterly mundane the dialog is. Knowing that, pretty much ruins my imagination of high, spiritual romanticism. I have to will myself to forget the meaning of what they are saying. Too bad I looked it up. It is better not to know Italian if you love Italian opera.Bill Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02950185676692819673noreply@blogger.com0