And while I'm on the subject of what-makes-us-human, apparently honeybees can be trained to become pessimistic. The more information I collect about animal analogs of common human experiences, the less I'm convinced that there's any meaningful point of hierarchical differentiation between our species and all the rest.
Read more here: Honeybees Might Have Emotions via Wired.com
Monday, June 20, 2011
Thinking About Thinking About Thinking
What makes us human? When I was a kid, it was the assertion that we were the only animals that used tools. Then we noticed that wasn't true, so the supposed bright line between Us and Them was pushed toward the formulation of language. Alas, we have now noticed the apparent existence of names and evidence for simple grammar and syntax among the vocalizations of species as charismatic as whales and as humble as prairie dogs. So what is it then that "separates us from the animals"?
A new theory by Michael Corballis, detailed in his new book The Recursive Mind, pins the blame for this individuation on our ability to think about thinking, and to be aware of our thinking. This recursive ability, he posits, comes before language and shapes language. Interesting stuff, but I've read of separate research that recently came to light suggesting the existence of limited recursive thinking in other animals based on their ability to figure out the logical consequences of actions within an experimental setting. My Google-fu is weak this morning but I will find that link and post it here as well when I do.
So really, guys, this "separation from the animals" concept - what does it do for us precisely? It's like so many other interestingly useful cultural concepts; it can help us move gracefully through the day without worrying too much about trivia, but as we zoom in on it, it expands until the tipping point becomes completely arbitrary. Still, I am glad to see someone else mounting a reasonable refutation of Chomsky's all-pervasive ideas on linguistics.
In my best recursive fashion, I am posting a link to a review of the book. So, you may read more about reading more about it here: Thoughts within thoughts make us human, via NewScientist.com
A new theory by Michael Corballis, detailed in his new book The Recursive Mind, pins the blame for this individuation on our ability to think about thinking, and to be aware of our thinking. This recursive ability, he posits, comes before language and shapes language. Interesting stuff, but I've read of separate research that recently came to light suggesting the existence of limited recursive thinking in other animals based on their ability to figure out the logical consequences of actions within an experimental setting. My Google-fu is weak this morning but I will find that link and post it here as well when I do.
So really, guys, this "separation from the animals" concept - what does it do for us precisely? It's like so many other interestingly useful cultural concepts; it can help us move gracefully through the day without worrying too much about trivia, but as we zoom in on it, it expands until the tipping point becomes completely arbitrary. Still, I am glad to see someone else mounting a reasonable refutation of Chomsky's all-pervasive ideas on linguistics.
In my best recursive fashion, I am posting a link to a review of the book. So, you may read more about reading more about it here: Thoughts within thoughts make us human, via NewScientist.com
Hello, I'd Like To Have an Argument.
Reason, logic, and rationality are supposed to be the foundation of our Western way of life. Science relies upon rationality in order to advance, and our entire law system is based upon the idea that logical argument will enable justice by uncovering the truth of a situation. In spite of this ideal, it's well known that bad science happens all the time, and that money will often buy victory in the court of law through the modus of expensive and highly-skilled lawyers.
Odd, then, that it's only just now been noticed by science that rational argument is bent more often in the service of victory than it is in pursuit of objective truth. It is, apparently, far more often just one more way for a human to consolidate power and win a mate. It's a good thing that we're admitting there's no such thing as true objectivity - we can, however, attempt to analyze our lack of objectivity in an objective manner, nesting quasi-objectivity inside itself recursively and approaching some kind of asymptotic ideal that way. Or we could just watch Monty Python videos about arguing about arguing about arguing and have a laugh at ourselves instead.
Read more here: Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth via NYTimes.com
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Moody's Tweets
When I lived on the north side of Chicago, I didn't have to turn on the TV or the radio to find out how the Cubs were doing in their games. All around me the city roared and booed in response to every play, and I couldn't have ignored it if I tried. More recently here in Salt Lake City, I noticed that everyone I ran into on one specific Wednesday last month was in a really good mood. I suspect the cause may have had to do with the U2 concert the night before, where thousands upon thousands of happy fans finally got to see their idols in the flesh. Whole cities do experience group moods; anxiety when the weather is changeable or windy, depression when it's dark and smoggy for a long time, and happiness when it's sunny. A local disaster can ruin everyone's day, and even a single fender-bender on the freeway at rush hour can cause a domino-effect of lateness and grouchiness for hundreds of people that ripples outwards as they subsequently interact with their families and coworkers. This kind of stinky karma, by the way, is the best reason ever to be an attentive and conscientious driver!
As in cities, so in the country at large. Remember 9/11? Who wasn't freaked out? How about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? That put a damper on the whole summer last year. We share our emotions, and now that the Internet lets us connect instantaneously over long distances, we share them to an even larger effect. This has not remained unnoticed by economists, and also by certain data-mining companies who keep track of the financial markets.
An average of three days after the Twittersphere indicated a spike in anxiety, share prices across many indices consistently took a dive. Flighty investors were reacting to their emotions. Conversely, when tweeters in general were happy, share prices rose. Economics is the universal human language, and it has proven as horrifically complex to forecast as the weather. Are we finally seeing a quantifiable illustration of the way in which the weather (among other things) directly influences the economy? What happens to us when common financial forecasting algorithms are all based off reading mass human emotion? Well, for one, you can say goodbye to that three day lead time they noticed in the 2008 data. For another, you then open the possibility for, say, a single nationwide blizzard causing a computer-entrained investor panic that persists for much longer than it might have, as low share prices fuel anxiety that loops out into the social networking sites and then back into the financial algorithms. The question arises: Who's running this junk show? Us, the computers, or the weather? What might happen if unscrupulous people try to run the system in reverse?
But seriously, folks, the mind boggles; much too much boggling to fit in this little blog, which has already well overrun its target word count. Perhaps the moral of this story might be, never trust a financier with your emotional wellbeing. It's wonderful and sunny today; don't you think a walk in the park would be nice?
And Phil Connors from the movie Groundhog Day offers some solid advice: "Don't drive angry!"
Read more here: Can Twitter predict the future? via Economist.com
As in cities, so in the country at large. Remember 9/11? Who wasn't freaked out? How about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? That put a damper on the whole summer last year. We share our emotions, and now that the Internet lets us connect instantaneously over long distances, we share them to an even larger effect. This has not remained unnoticed by economists, and also by certain data-mining companies who keep track of the financial markets.
An average of three days after the Twittersphere indicated a spike in anxiety, share prices across many indices consistently took a dive. Flighty investors were reacting to their emotions. Conversely, when tweeters in general were happy, share prices rose. Economics is the universal human language, and it has proven as horrifically complex to forecast as the weather. Are we finally seeing a quantifiable illustration of the way in which the weather (among other things) directly influences the economy? What happens to us when common financial forecasting algorithms are all based off reading mass human emotion? Well, for one, you can say goodbye to that three day lead time they noticed in the 2008 data. For another, you then open the possibility for, say, a single nationwide blizzard causing a computer-entrained investor panic that persists for much longer than it might have, as low share prices fuel anxiety that loops out into the social networking sites and then back into the financial algorithms. The question arises: Who's running this junk show? Us, the computers, or the weather? What might happen if unscrupulous people try to run the system in reverse?
But seriously, folks, the mind boggles; much too much boggling to fit in this little blog, which has already well overrun its target word count. Perhaps the moral of this story might be, never trust a financier with your emotional wellbeing. It's wonderful and sunny today; don't you think a walk in the park would be nice?
And Phil Connors from the movie Groundhog Day offers some solid advice: "Don't drive angry!"
Read more here: Can Twitter predict the future? via Economist.com
Extreme Worms
Life on Earth exists pretty much everywhere. And I mean everywhere, including the middle of crustal rock, miles down from the surface of the planet, completely in the absence of light energy or free gaseous oxygen. Science has known for over 20 years about this bacterial subsurface biosphere, but recently in South Africa we have found the first multicellular organisms that can survive that deep: a kind of nematode worm that rejoices in the name of Halicephalobus mephisto. Named after the demon who tempted Faust, this invertebrate can survive relatively high temperatures and feeds off the films of sturdy bacteria that form in the fractures between slabs of bedrock.
It seems to me that the debate over the existence of extraterrestrial life just keeps getting more interesting. I doubt we're going to ever find highly intelligent green Martian people living in vast, underground cities, but I think it's becoming more and more likely that we will find life to be incredibly common, with single-celled or simple multicellular creatures carving out a metabolic niche wherever they are able.
Read more here: Worms from hell identified far below the Earth's surface via physorg.com
It seems to me that the debate over the existence of extraterrestrial life just keeps getting more interesting. I doubt we're going to ever find highly intelligent green Martian people living in vast, underground cities, but I think it's becoming more and more likely that we will find life to be incredibly common, with single-celled or simple multicellular creatures carving out a metabolic niche wherever they are able.
Read more here: Worms from hell identified far below the Earth's surface via physorg.com
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Economy of Attention
Do you have a large social circle? Are you bad with names? Here's the science that lets you off the hook: Dunbar's Number (named for its formulator, Robin Dunbar), posits that there's a theoretical limit to the number of stable social relationships any single human can keep track of. That number? About 150. If you regularly interact with more than 150 people on a face to face basis, you are going to run into the natural limits of your tribal brain, evolved over millennia to keep you copacetic with your clan. Nature doesn't care about keeping track of all 850 people in your graduating class, and she doesn't think you should care either.
Dunbar's Number has recently been confirmed by research on an unexpected data resource: Twitter. You'd think that, for all the thousands upon thousands of followers that some people tweet to, and the hundreds upon hundreds of tweeters that some people follow, that we'd see some evidence that social technology was allowing us to venture beyond the limits of our evolution. Not so. Data collected from Twitter over six months, and across 1.7 million users, show that for each user the number of "active relationships" they maintain is between 100 and 200. The "economy of attention" appears to be at a stable set-point. We are wired for quality over quantity, so next time someone forgets your name, smile and forgive.
Read more here: Validation of Dunbar's number in Twitter conversations via arxiv.org
Dunbar's Number has recently been confirmed by research on an unexpected data resource: Twitter. You'd think that, for all the thousands upon thousands of followers that some people tweet to, and the hundreds upon hundreds of tweeters that some people follow, that we'd see some evidence that social technology was allowing us to venture beyond the limits of our evolution. Not so. Data collected from Twitter over six months, and across 1.7 million users, show that for each user the number of "active relationships" they maintain is between 100 and 200. The "economy of attention" appears to be at a stable set-point. We are wired for quality over quantity, so next time someone forgets your name, smile and forgive.
Read more here: Validation of Dunbar's number in Twitter conversations via arxiv.org
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don't. Q.E.D."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
- Douglas Adams
The financial markets often seem illogical, but it is with a certain amount of satisfaction that I note the Economist, that hoary-bearded sage of the Dismal Science, now admits that the whole shebang is just as faith-based as any apocalyptic religion. This all makes me wonder, how will the markets perform in the future? Information used to be rare and precious, and consensus was easier to create back when everyone was reading the same columns in the same newspapers. Now there is a confusing polyphony of loud opinion spiced with Damned Lies and Statistics. I don't pretend to know what things will look like going forward, but I suspect we are in for, at the very least, some interesting times.
Read more here: Faith and the markets via Economist.com
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