tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post2497454443182848797..comments2024-03-28T18:18:37.133-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Rep-coins, Legos, humor... and fear of "14"!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2662820635246299652014-08-13T15:57:36.300-07:002014-08-13T15:57:36.300-07:00Endorphins stimulated by exercise are a good moder...Endorphins stimulated by exercise are a good moderator of dopamine. I suspect exercise is needed for gamers, potheads, TV watchers, and some forms of mental "illness."<br /><br />I think locumranch is right to be skeptical of the disease model of addiction.<br /><br />I found doing activities you really love are dopamine releasers. I recall learning photography and "just one more set of negatives; just a few more prints" would occupy me long into the night. Later came art, and writing. I could spend butt time writing that would kill me otherwise. Few see the arts as a bad habit however.<br /><br />As far as endorphins, a plate of spaghetti big as your head, or 2 lb. steak, will also serve.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66996971322359146432014-08-13T14:32:10.793-07:002014-08-13T14:32:10.793-07:00Spare tires... heh...
onward!Spare tires... heh...<br /><br />onward!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31340565931173656922014-08-13T12:11:47.102-07:002014-08-13T12:11:47.102-07:00Larry Hart, your suggestion is whispering to my tu...Larry Hart, your suggestion is whispering to my tummy, but another vision is dancing in my head: wheels made of melon rings, the rest a concatenation of other fruits. Maybe we can sell them to the Jophur. They might enjoy eating their enemies for breakfast.<br /><br />Dr. Brin, my daughter asked how you do the tentacles on your traeki pancakes?<br /><br />greg byshenk - yes, neuroscience is very young, and in all sciences all conclusions are considered tentative, as new data can always change the picture. Theories are more often modified than outright rejected. Newton's Theory of Gravity is not gone, it has been modified by by Einstein and others, so it has evolved rather than being replaced. <br /><br />Think of Seasonal Affect Disorder. Most people get bummed out when the weather is gloomy, some more than others. Some people get so bummed out they become suicidal. If you look at suicide rates, they tend to be high in places that have few sunshine ours in the year, like Finland or Seattle. This is explained easily by a neurotransmitter called Serotonin, which is, in humans, mostly activated by sunlight. Too little sunlight makes people depressed, too much nudges people toward violent behavior. Knowing that it is light that activates it, psychologists hit on the in retrospect obvious solution of having people who are especially sensitive to serotonin get up in the morning and turn all the lights on.<br /><br />This is a very practical treatment for a very serious condition that has come from an understanding of neurochemistry. It can also provide useful advice to the many more people who are not sensitive enough to be diagnosed with SAD, but who find themselves especially down during the winter (in most climates). The opposite condition is also interesting to think about. While neuroscience is young and people are discovering new and amazing things all the time, you have to go with what you know, especially if you want to be of help to your fellow human being. Just be prepared to change your thinking if new data merits a change.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11989799010186244812014-08-13T07:44:58.214-07:002014-08-13T07:44:58.214-07:00re: traeki pancakes...
I'd think that stacks o...re: traeki pancakes...<br />I'd think that stacks of doughnuts would make some interesting traeki. Or maybe Jophur too, if master rings could be introduced.<br /><br />G'kek <b>wheels</b> could be made from pancakes (or doughnuts) as well.<br /><br />For those who haven't heard my theory before--Dr Brin doesn't fully specify what the nature of the insult was that caused G'Kek to be hunted down and slaughtered by Jophur, but I came up with a theory that seems to me so "right" that it has to be true. G'kek once mortally offended the Jophur by using discarded Jophur/Traeki rings as <b>tires</b>.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11259766657685499772014-08-12T21:59:05.836-07:002014-08-12T21:59:05.836-07:00Alex Tolley, you could be right, but to find out w...Alex Tolley, you could be right, but to find out we would have to know something about their mating habits, specifically their catchment area, and there would be the problem of boundaries, where gene flow would likely happen.<br /> btw - what is "Purpr very"?<br /><br />Dr. Brin, the four features you give, freedom, safety, health and education tend to lead to income, which gives women leverage they did not have in most societies in the past. I explain this to my students each year, and they are mostly floored by the idea that women could possibly choose to have fewer children. So the transition isn't complete even here, but it still shows some real hope and progress.<br /><br />I can see Traeki pancakes, but trying to do this with G'Kek would be nightmarish, I think.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53017191844992839782014-08-12T19:07:54.977-07:002014-08-12T19:07:54.977-07:00The amazing human trait... that when given freedom...The amazing human trait... that when given freedom, safety, health and education, most human women chose to defy Malthus and have 1 to 3 kids... may be temporary, lasting only 3 or 4 generations. In that blessed window of time we must make a truly advanced civilization. Other species may never have lucked into that trait.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44384456078755956942014-08-12T18:36:29.841-07:002014-08-12T18:36:29.841-07:00I agree that neuroscience is one of the revolution...I agree that neuroscience is one of the revolutions of our time. But it is also very early days for neuroscience, with lots that we don't know, and any conclusions are probably speculative (at best).greg byshenknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61069507264403199682014-08-12T18:03:40.849-07:002014-08-12T18:03:40.849-07:00Purpr very@Paul Shen-Brown
I disagree. These were...Purpr very@Paul Shen-Brown<br />I disagree. These were probably different populations that were each driven by directional selection in their respective habitats - dark for London trees, peppered for the country.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12432883297234730392014-08-12T16:45:06.011-07:002014-08-12T16:45:06.011-07:00Alex Tolley, the classic peppered moths of London ...Alex Tolley, the classic peppered moths of London are an example. Most textbooks only talk about what happened to populations in or near London itself, but in the surrounding countryside where there was less smog, there was selection against the medium-colored moths, leading to a split in the curve.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20741476131444080922014-08-12T16:23:30.164-07:002014-08-12T16:23:30.164-07:00Pinker's story is backed by an explanatory nar...Pinker's story is backed by an explanatory narrative that comes from a different field, namely economics. There is no reasonable way to refute that humanity has been fantastically successful at multiplying and expanding our skill sets/knowledge base through specialization from trade. Those of us who do it are filling the world with successful children and the connection to Pinker comes from the recognition this success requires devoting quite a bit of time to it in the form of comprehending hypotheticals and handling social abstractions. Kids who can do that in trade are probably applying the same tricks to other parts of social life because they are in their emotional toolkits. THAT leads to a reduction of violence where trade gets most complex.Alfred Differnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7739768236468056242014-08-12T16:23:21.400-07:002014-08-12T16:23:21.400-07:00Although "disruptive selection" is one o...Although "disruptive selection" is one of the 3 classic textbook mechanisms, and it appears easy to simulate, I am skeptical of it occurrence. There are almost no examples from biology to support its occurrence in nature. Therefore even positing it in this discussion should require some good supporting evidence, rather than just speculation.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85443520709357510982014-08-12T15:13:31.216-07:002014-08-12T15:13:31.216-07:00Fun idea for sculptures based on sci fi characters...Fun idea for sculptures based on sci fi characters! When I make pancakes, the shapes include flying saucers, duckies, tanks, bicycles... and traeki!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39672789494297066272014-08-12T14:03:52.209-07:002014-08-12T14:03:52.209-07:00Paul 451, I am willing to concede the point. I am ...Paul 451, I am willing to concede the point. I am not wed to any particular hypothesis here, I was probably just being overly pessimistic. However, don't dismiss the explanatory value of neuroscience so easily. Most of the discourse on violence in media versus violence in reality has been dominated by analogical reasoning (if it looks like it, it must be like it), and while this is unsurprising coming from the media, mostly untrained in scientific reasoning, some of the professionals in behavioral sciences are equally guilty.<br /><br />Neurology provides ways to actually test hypotheses, though I do not have the means to do so myself. As I said before, most of what I wrote is conventional neuroscience. Only the bit about the limits of exposure to natural stimuli vs. artificial stimuli and how that might relate to tolerance was my own conjecture (not a just-so story, which is argument by assertion, the difference is that I am not saying I am absolutely right about this, I am only suggesting a possibility).<br /><br />Anyway, my main point was about amotivational syndrome, not violence. Fortunately the place I teach is not that bad. There have been some interesting articles on sciencedaily.com about marijuana recently. I check this site frequently, though sometimes their summaries of research too brief to satisfy my curiosity. <br /><br />I just picked up Pinker's book at my local library, though I have not had time to read it yet. I did skim through and look at some of the graphs, and it reminded me of something that came out of the old debate between punctuated equilibrium and gradualism. Stephen Jay Gould made the point that what may look like gradual change on a very broad time scale looks ounctuated on a shorter time scale. The smooth curves of a graph are sometimes illusory. When you look closer, you see the data are rarely so clean, showing dips and valleys. On a scale of decades you may see stretches of a few years where something like violence increases, even though the overall trend is downward over hundreds or thousands of years. <br /><br />I will certainly grant that the media distorts perceptions. They make their living by drawing attention to themselves. There are also those that deliberately manipulate data. I have seen climate change deniers do this trick, showing only a very short part of a graph where average temperatures do not seem to change, but if you look at the graph over a time span of a century, the overall trend is clearly up.<br /><br />Are these paragraphs short enough? Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67700521965097037462014-08-12T13:43:26.450-07:002014-08-12T13:43:26.450-07:00If you have stucco on your house, you already have...If you have stucco on your house, you already have a partial Faraday cage. Look at how they put the stuff up and you'll find a metal mesh underneath on which everything is 'plastered.' Complete the mesh in the attic and you've got your cage. Track down the ways power gets into the cage and disconnect there.<br /><br />Some people also have a metal foil on the foam insulation in the walls. If your cell phone has trouble inside the building, you might be one of them. 8)Alfred Differnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37447998016584255062014-08-12T13:38:55.573-07:002014-08-12T13:38:55.573-07:00Dear Dr. Brin,
Thick skin noted. I may be coming a...Dear Dr. Brin,<br />Thick skin noted. I may be coming across as extra pessimistic because it is the end of my vacation, when I am about to go back to working 27 hours a day, 9 days a week.<br /><br />My writing style might come across as overly emotional, but it is mostly out of habit. After learning about Standpoint Theory in college, I have tended to do this. Standpoint Theory (not really a theory, but a suggestion for praxis) originates with a psychologist named Donna Haraway, who argued that conventional scientific discourse, in which authors try to remain as anonymous as possible, has the effect of making it difficult for a reader to assess biases in the author's thinking. Her prescription is for authors to reveal something about themselves, both so that they can examine their own biases more easily and so their readers can better judge for themselves. <br /><br />btw - I looked over that oxytocin video again, and I had forgotten that the speaker brought up Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments." I thought you might find this interesting, given your previous discussion.<br /><br />My daughter just finished sculpting a Hoon and a G'kek (Alvin & Huck) to go with the Traechi she made last week. Unfortunately I had had poor success with photographing miniatures, or I would send you pictures.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31349944179462832014-08-12T13:31:30.328-07:002014-08-12T13:31:30.328-07:00I meant Paul (451) and not Paul ($%!) !!!
I doub...I meant Paul (451) and not Paul ($%!) !!!<br /><br />I doubt Autos are very vulnerable to a Carrington event. Forewarned, I might try to connect a jumper cable from engine to ground. Maybe pop the circuit breakers for most of the house, except the kitchen because life must go on. Unplug the valuable electronics.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25095091456552814392014-08-12T12:56:29.293-07:002014-08-12T12:56:29.293-07:00Small question. I recently read an article about t...Small question. I recently read an article about the possibility of a Carrington Event and on shielded electronics. My question is this: if we were to get sufficient warning of a Carrington Event that we could shut down computers and such, would wrapping them, cell phones, and other electronics in aluminum foil so it's completely covered be sufficient protection to avoid the electronics being damaged?<br /><br />In essence I'm talking about making something akin to a Faraday Cage out of aluminum foil - by unplugging electronics (and external hard drives for that matter) and completely encasing them in thin metal, would that protect those electronics?<br /><br />(I'm not sure if I could find enough tin foil to wrap around the automobile though! ^^)<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41860326848884523932014-08-12T12:24:48.452-07:002014-08-12T12:24:48.452-07:00
Paul S-B I get an impression you feel that I stom...<br />Paul S-B I get an impression you feel that I stomped on you a bit, when I said “bull.” Please be assured that this community (one of the oldest and best on the web) welcomes you and deems you a worthy addition. Just expect to need a somewhat thick skin. “Bull” is par for the course and said in a spirit of collegial give and take.<br /><br />Suggestion? Use more paragraph breaks. Solid lumps of text are difficult. Se how the other Paul ($%!) does it. Also, you have no idea how rough 1968 was ! We reached the end (and the Apollo 8 photo) just in time. One more day of that year…<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8380083420701034512014-08-12T12:23:04.308-07:002014-08-12T12:23:04.308-07:00According to the definitions I supplied earlier, m...According to the definitions I supplied earlier, many of the trendy so-called 'addictions' are fictions, representing (dysfunctional) obsessive-compulsive behaviours rather than compensatory adaptions to noxious stimuli.<br /><br />Sex, Work, Gambling & Videogaming are not addictions or even potential addictions, neither is 'dopamine addiction' (as this mechanism is an intrinsic part of human physiology), and no one can be said to be 'addicted' to the basic requirements of life like food or water, or air, or sleep, or exercise because 'dysfunction' is not synonymous with addiction ... <br /><br />Although some individuals DO appear addicted to equivocation, ignorance & illogic. <br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70961580755748921432014-08-12T11:25:23.186-07:002014-08-12T11:25:23.186-07:00"for you to see anecdotally it"
{sigh}<i>"for you to see anecdotally it"</i><br /><br />{sigh}<br /><br />Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74928997258697665192014-08-12T11:22:27.163-07:002014-08-12T11:22:27.163-07:00Paul Shen-Brown
"That is, the curve would spl...Paul Shen-Brown<br /><i>"That is, the curve would split into two populations."</i><br /><br />What I can't seem to get you to realise, so I'll spell it out explicitly, is that you are discussing an extremely rare phenomena (mass shootings) but you are using as your anecdotal evidence the experience of non-extreme cases.<br /><br />That's important, because it means the effect you claim to observe is occurring in the bulk of the population, otherwise you wouldn't have observed it. That would produce the equivalent effect in that bulk of the population, such as thrill-seeking behaviour. We know from ADHD that thrill-seeking behaviour (and similar impulse control issues) has a high correlation with crime (and being a victim of crime). Which means that a phenomena (games/phones/twitter caused dopamine-addiction) which affected enough of the population for <i>you</i> to see anecdotally it, would also have created an noticeable increase in crime.<br /><br />Since that hasn't happened, your anecdotal experience is shown to be misinterpreted, and not related to dopamine addiction levels in society, hence nor to mass shootings.<br /><br />Everything else you write is a just-so story created from fragments of neuro-chemistry to justify that prior (anecdotally driven) mistaken assumption.<br /><br />To paraphrase it again to try to make it clearer, while the overall population distribution curve may not uniformly shift upwards (where crime is "up", here), the sub-population that is prone to dopamine addiction <i>would</i> all shift up, and must have done so for you to see the lesser effects in non-extreme (non-mass-murdering) children. If your thesis is correct, in order for dopamine-addiction to explain an uptick in mass shootings, we'd see an uptick in <i>all crimes</i> across that sub-population that is dopamine addiction prone.<br /><br />For your thesis to work, you need a simultaneous effect which reduces crime in the non-dopamine-addiction-prone population that not only balances out the increase in crime from the dopamine-addicts, but dominates it (in order to produce the actual decline). But your dopamine-addiction thesis has no such mechanism. There's no reason why the part of the population with no special addiction or attraction to gaming/twitter/facebook/etc would reduce their crime rate.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76091334121033523392014-08-12T07:56:28.248-07:002014-08-12T07:56:28.248-07:00I got a hold of my work computer and found that TE...I got a hold of my work computer and found that TED Talk video on oxytocin. It is called "Trust, Morality and Oxytocin" by Paul Zak. It's about 16 minutes long, and my students certainly found it fascinating, as well as other adults I have shown it to. Here's the url:<br />http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin<br />Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47637449040100503852014-08-12T07:19:16.609-07:002014-08-12T07:19:16.609-07:00Just a recommendation before I run out of time - n...Just a recommendation before I run out of time - neurology is one of the scientific revolutions of our time, largely thanks to new imaging technologies that have allowed us to peer inside like never before. Much of my earlier posts has been very basic neuroscience, and only the tip of the iceberg, as it were. The human mind is a fascinating thing, flexible like no other we know of, but limited in some very peculiar ways by the hardware of the brain. If you are curious but find you don't have enough time for reading, there are some very good books on CD out there. If you live in a big city you may spend a lot of time in your car, and learning something can be a nice alternative to the radio autopilot. Some of the best I have been listening to have been recorded lectures from The Learning Company's Great Courses series. They are pretty expensive, so I only get them on sale, and I have seen some in local libraries if you want to try them out without investing the money. If your local library doesn't have them, most libraries participate in Interlibrary Loan.<br /><br />Dr. Robert Sapolsky's "Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality" is excellent. Sapolsky is a neuroscientist who has won the MacArthur Genius Award for his work on stress. His title "Stress and Your Body" is a fascinating look at how things can go wrong inside, and do for so many people (I'm sure by now most of you have heard the news about Robin Williams' apparent suicide). National Geographic also did a great video that features Sapolsky's work called "Stress: Portrait of a Killer." His "Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science" is easier for people who don't have much of a science background, though most of the material is covered in the first one I mentioned. <br />Mark Leary's "Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior" is also good and geared toward a more general audience.<br />Steven Novella's "Your Deceptive Mind: A Guide to Critical Thinking Skills" does not have a lot of neuroscience in it, but it is a good way to help people tell the difference between solid reasoning and fallacious arguments, even in your own thinking, is always useful. Michael Shermer's "Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist" is similar and more entertaining but also a little lighter. <br />Enjoy!Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55580247388609881482014-08-11T23:11:00.316-07:002014-08-11T23:11:00.316-07:00The idea of team chess with human/computer pairs h...The idea of team chess with human/computer pairs has been around for a while. The first I saw the idea flirted with was in an 80's sci-fi novel by no less than... Vernor Vinge!<br /><br />The Peace War is an excellent novel. :)Singedrachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08486542308536231013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54506812424305933822014-08-11T22:25:46.697-07:002014-08-11T22:25:46.697-07:00Paul 451
I’m glad you brought up the fact that dis...Paul 451<br />I’m glad you brought up the fact that distributions change. Most people in my experience think that a distribution is some permanent feature, but in fact shifts in distribution curves is a fundamental concept in population genetics. What you are describing is called Directional Selection, but it is one of three ways a distribution curve can shift. Directional selection would only happen if all members of the population were equally exposed to the stimulus, but dopamine is motivation. People on the other end of the curve, who have very little sensitivity to dopamine, would have little motivation to game, or text, become addicted to Facebook, etc. Therefore they would not be nearly as exposed to the stimulus by choice – they would not choose to be gamers, as you have chosen not to (though a person could be highly sensitive and simply get their dopamine another way, like the indignation junkies Brin describes). Therefore, those at one end of the curve do not experience the stimulus and they do not shift. If the curve does shift (the population evolves) what you would see would be Disruptive Selection. That is, the curve would split into two populations. In disruptive selection the range may or may not change, but the middle begins to disappear. One single trait, even if polygenic, might not be enough to split the species into two separate races, but in time, if for some reason high thrill seekers and low thrill seekers find themselves reproductively isolated, it could, but it’s not a quick process. James Alan Gardner wrote a short story in which he postulated that Catholics and Protestants, if laws permanently isolated them from each other, could end up speciating. Still, the point is that the pressure is not being applied equally to the entire population, therefore the uptick in violent crime you are assuming may or may not happen. The third possibility is called Stabilizing Selection, in which the extremes disappear and the overall distribution becomes more average.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.com