There's a point of development at 15 months of age before which a child will not recognize herself in a mirror. The brain has to mature, and the mind has to come to a point of organization so that the kid will recognize the image as "oh, that's me!" and not "who's that other baby behind the glass?" Our capacity to recognize ourselves, literally our ability to reflect upon our being and actions, is a major part of what makes us human individually.
Interesting then, that we are beginning to hold a mirror up to ourselves collectively, and to gather information about our knottiest problems in as objective a way as we can. In the mirror today: Religion. The Economist reports on the work of Dr. Nicholas Baumard, who is investigating our conceptual ideas of "just deserts" and "fate." It appears that we act differently - and more ethically - when we think we are being watched. Religions, of course, provide us with the deity as the Ultimate Watcher - you cannot hide anything from God.
But now we are watching God back - or at least we are watching ourselves feel watched by God. Who watches the watchers? It might turn out to be us, after all.
Read more here: The good god guide via Economist.com
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
The Birth of Art
Cave art has always fascinated us; who were these people, and what were their intentions? Werner Herzog's new film, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, provides us with food for thought in the form of a luscious 3D reconnaissance of the oldest painted cave system in the world, Chauvet. The cave paintings of Chauvet are very fragile, and the production and distribution of this film will enable millions more people to experience them than could possibly ever be permitted into the cave itself.
Great art is universal; it may mean a different thing to every person, but it means something to almost everyone. These paintings were made 31,000 years ago. The artists were our ancestors. How are we the same as them, and how do we differ? This movie will allow you to see, judge, and draw your own conclusions.
I am not able to track down showtimes for the Salt Lake area yet, but when I find them I will post them for Catalyst readers!
Read a review of Herzog's film here: How were Ice Age cave painters able to create great art? via IrishTimes.com
Great art is universal; it may mean a different thing to every person, but it means something to almost everyone. These paintings were made 31,000 years ago. The artists were our ancestors. How are we the same as them, and how do we differ? This movie will allow you to see, judge, and draw your own conclusions.
I am not able to track down showtimes for the Salt Lake area yet, but when I find them I will post them for Catalyst readers!
Read a review of Herzog's film here: How were Ice Age cave painters able to create great art? via IrishTimes.com
Take A (Not So) Deep Breath
My first yoga guru gave me some invaluable advice for use during panic and anxiety attacks: "Use the three-part breath," she said. "Breathe to the bottom third of the lungs, hold for two seconds, then to the middle third, and hold for two seconds, and then fill your lungs all the way up and hold for another two seconds. Breathe out slowly and completely and hold again for a couple of seconds when the lungs are empty." I've used this method myself for dealing with (among other things) air-travel related terrors, and it works really well.
The problem, specifically, is hyperventilation. Panic will make you breathe much more quickly and deeply than usual (as preparation for fight or flight), and without actual physical exertion to balance the scale, the lower overall levels of carbon dioxide in the blood will worsen the physical symptoms of the anxiety. Researchers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, have applied technology to the problem and, perhaps, reinvented the yogic wheel on this one. The Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training (CART) system consists of a bunch of wires and sensors that report a subject's CO2 levels as they experience a panic attack, and it coaches them on how to breathe more shallowly and regularly so that their CO2 levels rise back into a comfortable zone.
I am, on the one hand, pleased to see this kind of sensible approach to panic disorder - it's far more useful than simply pointing out to the sufferer that there's really nothing to be afraid of (or simply drugging them senseless). One of the most awful parts of a panic attack is often that feeling of simply being out of control emotionally, even as your logical mind is screaming at you that there is NOTHING WRONG AT ALL, SO WHY DO YOU FEEL SO BAD, DUMMY? So yes, a sensible, active, and drug-free approach to physically managing your emotions? Bring it on.
On the other hand, I'm amused that SMU has taken an awful lot of effort to develop a (presumably expensive) machine that replicates all the advantages of yogic breathing practice. Our left-brained culture is intoxicated with technology! I wish more people would just go to yoga class, but if it takes a machine to teach us how to calm ourselves down physically, then I guess what matters most is that we calm down...however we achieve that.
Read more here: A new breathing therapy reduces panic and anxiety by reversing hyperventilation via the SMU research blog
The problem, specifically, is hyperventilation. Panic will make you breathe much more quickly and deeply than usual (as preparation for fight or flight), and without actual physical exertion to balance the scale, the lower overall levels of carbon dioxide in the blood will worsen the physical symptoms of the anxiety. Researchers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, have applied technology to the problem and, perhaps, reinvented the yogic wheel on this one. The Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training (CART) system consists of a bunch of wires and sensors that report a subject's CO2 levels as they experience a panic attack, and it coaches them on how to breathe more shallowly and regularly so that their CO2 levels rise back into a comfortable zone.
I am, on the one hand, pleased to see this kind of sensible approach to panic disorder - it's far more useful than simply pointing out to the sufferer that there's really nothing to be afraid of (or simply drugging them senseless). One of the most awful parts of a panic attack is often that feeling of simply being out of control emotionally, even as your logical mind is screaming at you that there is NOTHING WRONG AT ALL, SO WHY DO YOU FEEL SO BAD, DUMMY? So yes, a sensible, active, and drug-free approach to physically managing your emotions? Bring it on.
On the other hand, I'm amused that SMU has taken an awful lot of effort to develop a (presumably expensive) machine that replicates all the advantages of yogic breathing practice. Our left-brained culture is intoxicated with technology! I wish more people would just go to yoga class, but if it takes a machine to teach us how to calm ourselves down physically, then I guess what matters most is that we calm down...however we achieve that.
Read more here: A new breathing therapy reduces panic and anxiety by reversing hyperventilation via the SMU research blog
Seeing The Light
Ideas ripen, just like fruit, and technology builds upon itself. Once humans had mastered the manufacture and casting of glass, it was only a matter of time before we noticed how light is refracted through thicknesses of it, and the prism was born. One of the earliest uses of the prism was nautical: old sailing ships (and classic sailing boats today) would have a flat-topped prism mounted in the deck surface to redirect sunlight into the hold without letting in sea-spray as well.
Enter, eventually, the ubiquitous plastic two-liter soda bottle. Emptied and crushed it's only so much more mass to be recycled (hopefully), or more likely to be sent to the landfill or the incinerator. But refilled with water and capped with a UV-resistant plastic top...?
Ideas cross-pollinate, and people who live in dark, tin-roofed buildings in Brazil get a cheap and highly effective method of lighting their homes and businesses during the day.
Enter, eventually, the ubiquitous plastic two-liter soda bottle. Emptied and crushed it's only so much more mass to be recycled (hopefully), or more likely to be sent to the landfill or the incinerator. But refilled with water and capped with a UV-resistant plastic top...?
Ideas cross-pollinate, and people who live in dark, tin-roofed buildings in Brazil get a cheap and highly effective method of lighting their homes and businesses during the day.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Beeware!
The keeping of honeybees became one of the cornerstones of agriculture as farming grew more intensive - without them a great many of our non-cereal crops would fail. It's alarming, then, that in the past several years entire hives of bees have been emptied by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The causes of CCD are poorly understood, but it is clear that we've been widely mismanaging our bees for several decades now. The spread of the varroa mite, malnutrition caused by substituting sugar water for harvested honey, and exposure to a variety of pesticides all appear to contribute to CCD. Lately, though, it appears that the bees themselves have at least been attempting to manage their exposure to pesticides.
The worker bees who harvest pollen for the hive are apparently not able to discern between pollen that is clean and pollen from flowers treated by pesticides, but within the hive the housekeeper workers who store the pollen away can tell that there's something wrong. They "entomb" the bad pollen in special cells lined with disinfectant propolis resin - however, this last-ditch effort does not save the hive - the entombing of pesticide-laden pollen is seen in hives that subsequently succumb to CCD. It does, however, indicate that the bees know that something bad is afoot and are trying to do something about it.
I am no apiarist, but the way that hives affected with CCD are simply abandoned by all the worker bees makes me wonder about the subtle mechanisms that keep a hive together in the first place. The chemical and behavioral communication that allows a hive to make decisions as a single entity must be breaking down. Humans also live in hives - made of concrete instead of wax, and tied together with electromagnetic communications instead of pheromones. What poisons - literal and figurative - are we managing? What are the things that keep us together in societies and allow us to cooperate? And should we perhaps be paying a little more attention to them?
Read more here: Honeybees 'entomb' hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists via guardian.co.uk
The worker bees who harvest pollen for the hive are apparently not able to discern between pollen that is clean and pollen from flowers treated by pesticides, but within the hive the housekeeper workers who store the pollen away can tell that there's something wrong. They "entomb" the bad pollen in special cells lined with disinfectant propolis resin - however, this last-ditch effort does not save the hive - the entombing of pesticide-laden pollen is seen in hives that subsequently succumb to CCD. It does, however, indicate that the bees know that something bad is afoot and are trying to do something about it.
I am no apiarist, but the way that hives affected with CCD are simply abandoned by all the worker bees makes me wonder about the subtle mechanisms that keep a hive together in the first place. The chemical and behavioral communication that allows a hive to make decisions as a single entity must be breaking down. Humans also live in hives - made of concrete instead of wax, and tied together with electromagnetic communications instead of pheromones. What poisons - literal and figurative - are we managing? What are the things that keep us together in societies and allow us to cooperate? And should we perhaps be paying a little more attention to them?
Read more here: Honeybees 'entomb' hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists via guardian.co.uk
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Yadda Yadda Yadda
Speech is one of the most basic things that makes us human. We wait eagerly for our kids to utter that first word, and many parents can remember the exact day that they first heard their child begin to communicate intelligibly. We have traditionally marked ourselves off from the "dumb beasts" by our ability to jabber at each other in bursts of vocal sound densely packed with meaning - but how much of that meaning, on average, actually gets through?
I'd hazard a lot less than we assume. In a lot of ways, speech is a distraction from what's really going on, the gist of which is often shown quite clearly by body language and actions. How many times have you heard a political speech and then gone on to watch the speaker do precisely the opposite of what he or she had been verbally endorsing? If we hadn't invented speech, it would be a lot harder for us to lie.
This is, I think, one of the reasons why animals are so good for us. They don't talk, and they don't really listen to our speech - they hear the tone of voice we use, and they understand our energy. We might spend the whole day at the office fronting to our colleagues, but when we get home the dog knows all about our day as soon as we walk in the door. Animals keep us honest.
Check out #715; In which Speech is merely a Dialect, via Wondermark.com
I'd hazard a lot less than we assume. In a lot of ways, speech is a distraction from what's really going on, the gist of which is often shown quite clearly by body language and actions. How many times have you heard a political speech and then gone on to watch the speaker do precisely the opposite of what he or she had been verbally endorsing? If we hadn't invented speech, it would be a lot harder for us to lie.
This is, I think, one of the reasons why animals are so good for us. They don't talk, and they don't really listen to our speech - they hear the tone of voice we use, and they understand our energy. We might spend the whole day at the office fronting to our colleagues, but when we get home the dog knows all about our day as soon as we walk in the door. Animals keep us honest.
Check out #715; In which Speech is merely a Dialect, via Wondermark.com
You're Doing It Wrong
Culture is a weird thing. We grow up inside one, and for the most part, we stay there entirely unaware of the effects and distortions it is wreaking upon our reality. Culture is, in fact, so transparent to us that we have coined a term for the sensation of being suddenly dislocated from it: culture shock.
Getting outside of your culture is one of the most valuable things a human can do. Want to understand yourself on a deeper level? Go somewhere where you don't recognize any of the food, or where the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the dashboard. Alas, not all of us can afford a vacation to Scotland or Vanuatu - so what's a good global citizen to do? Luckily for us, we invented the Internet.
Did you know that everything you do is influenced by your culture? And I do mean everything. The good folks over at Cracked.com truly relish relieving us of our misconceptions, and they have outdone themselves with this latest effort. Think you know how to breathe, sleep, and poop? Check again. Our enculturation is seated at the very deepest level, and it turns out that in many cases it arbitrarily runs counter to even the basic efficiency of our bodily functions.
Read more here: 7 Basic Things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong via Cracked
Getting outside of your culture is one of the most valuable things a human can do. Want to understand yourself on a deeper level? Go somewhere where you don't recognize any of the food, or where the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the dashboard. Alas, not all of us can afford a vacation to Scotland or Vanuatu - so what's a good global citizen to do? Luckily for us, we invented the Internet.
Did you know that everything you do is influenced by your culture? And I do mean everything. The good folks over at Cracked.com truly relish relieving us of our misconceptions, and they have outdone themselves with this latest effort. Think you know how to breathe, sleep, and poop? Check again. Our enculturation is seated at the very deepest level, and it turns out that in many cases it arbitrarily runs counter to even the basic efficiency of our bodily functions.
Read more here: 7 Basic Things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong via Cracked
Monday, April 4, 2011
This Way to the Egress
More women are becoming funeral directors. Hallelujah; it's about time we put a little more caring into the "death care industry." Americans are legendarily averse to dying, but fear of dying is really about fear of living - of prizing life so much that, like a spoiled child, it suffers in quality by being kept from risk. The laying out of the dead was traditionally always women's work, and has only suffered its present pseudo-scientific objectification since the U.S. Civil War, when embalming became the rage to preserve the corpses going home north and south via road and rail. Like it or not, being born means having, at some point, to die. Women bring us onto the planet; it's only right that we have the opportunity to be seen off by them too.
Read more here: Funeral Divas via Slate.com
Read more here: Funeral Divas via Slate.com
The Clevon Fallacy
Used to be, you grew up and got married and had kids, and that was how it was for everyone - but a larger percentage of couples now are simply opting out of that traditional lifestyle, and saying no to children. Details magazine online this month features a neatly polarizing article about the virtues of remaining childless. Seems like people have some quite pointed opinions on the subject. But, really, kids or no kids - so what?
Well, if you've seen Mike Judge's cult hit Idiocracy, you'll be familiar with what I'll call the Clevon theory of human evolution. In a nutshell, Judge notes the inverse correlation between IQ and having kids; that the more intelligent we get, the fewer children we have. Follow this observation to its logical conclusion, and eventually all the smart people die out and you wind up with a planet populated entirely by dunces almost too stupid to remember to breathe.
That's a good basis for a funny movie, but it's way too simplistic of a take. Yes, the correlation exists, but look closer: it's specifically the women who are controlling the birth rate, and it doesn't have anything to do with native IQ (which is also a measure of Western enculturation, not just of simple problem-solving intelligence). It's EDUCATION that makes the difference. The more educated we become, the fewer children women choose to have, across the board, regardless of race or nationality.
So, really, does this mean we should ban smart women from college just so we can keep having smart babies? I'd like to note that I know many intelligent, college-educated women who have families - but that in general they chose to have two kids, not seven. Not only that, but Judge has been thinking about intelligence as if it's hard-wired, ignoring all the myriad influences that environment can have upon the expression of genes. There are indeed some really stupid people out there who just drew short straws genetically, but I'd bet that for every one of those you'd find three who just didn't get enough vitamin D as children, or whose mothers were exposed to punishingly high levels of stress while they were in the womb, or who were exposed to any of thousands of different intelligence-busting developmental influences. Poverty hurts everyone. Moreover, if it wasn't possible for intelligence to arise spontaneously as an adaptive response to our richly interactive environment, we'd never have bothered coming down from the trees and taming fire in the first place, never mind inventing space flight and the Internet.
The human population of Earth is brushing 7 billion, which in this blogger's humble opinion is just too damned many. So educate the women, let us choose when and if to have kids, and could we please ditch the Malthusian melodramatics? We're doing OK; we really are. Rather than sweating the population analytics, we'd do better to spend effort getting over our entrenched and purely reflexive preference for whatever culture we were raised in. We need to teach the children we have to see the web of life on this planet as it truly is - a single entity to whose health we individually contribute or detract depending upon how well we run our own lives.
Read more here: THE NO-BABY BOOM via Details.com
Well, if you've seen Mike Judge's cult hit Idiocracy, you'll be familiar with what I'll call the Clevon theory of human evolution. In a nutshell, Judge notes the inverse correlation between IQ and having kids; that the more intelligent we get, the fewer children we have. Follow this observation to its logical conclusion, and eventually all the smart people die out and you wind up with a planet populated entirely by dunces almost too stupid to remember to breathe.
That's a good basis for a funny movie, but it's way too simplistic of a take. Yes, the correlation exists, but look closer: it's specifically the women who are controlling the birth rate, and it doesn't have anything to do with native IQ (which is also a measure of Western enculturation, not just of simple problem-solving intelligence). It's EDUCATION that makes the difference. The more educated we become, the fewer children women choose to have, across the board, regardless of race or nationality.
So, really, does this mean we should ban smart women from college just so we can keep having smart babies? I'd like to note that I know many intelligent, college-educated women who have families - but that in general they chose to have two kids, not seven. Not only that, but Judge has been thinking about intelligence as if it's hard-wired, ignoring all the myriad influences that environment can have upon the expression of genes. There are indeed some really stupid people out there who just drew short straws genetically, but I'd bet that for every one of those you'd find three who just didn't get enough vitamin D as children, or whose mothers were exposed to punishingly high levels of stress while they were in the womb, or who were exposed to any of thousands of different intelligence-busting developmental influences. Poverty hurts everyone. Moreover, if it wasn't possible for intelligence to arise spontaneously as an adaptive response to our richly interactive environment, we'd never have bothered coming down from the trees and taming fire in the first place, never mind inventing space flight and the Internet.
The human population of Earth is brushing 7 billion, which in this blogger's humble opinion is just too damned many. So educate the women, let us choose when and if to have kids, and could we please ditch the Malthusian melodramatics? We're doing OK; we really are. Rather than sweating the population analytics, we'd do better to spend effort getting over our entrenched and purely reflexive preference for whatever culture we were raised in. We need to teach the children we have to see the web of life on this planet as it truly is - a single entity to whose health we individually contribute or detract depending upon how well we run our own lives.
Read more here: THE NO-BABY BOOM via Details.com
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