Simon Baron-Cohen has been working his whole life to understand the scientific nature of what we call "evil," and he believes that the keystone to the phenomenon is a lack of empathy. Well, yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I have been telling this story through article after article, but each new one I post just makes me feel better about our chances as a species. YES, we are finally "getting it." Armageddon is optional. No ideology or doctrine contains us; we exist in a sea of influences both internal (genetic, metabolic) and external (cultural, environmental). The future is clearly in our hands, and we are capable of harnessing both the intelligence and the motivation to make it a good one.
The opposite of empathy is contempt. Baron-Cohen talks a lot about empathy, and in previous work Paul Ekman and John Gottman talk about the effects of contempt on relationships. Marriages may be full of conflict and yet still be successful and fulfilling to both parties, as long as empathy and respect exists between them. Once contempt creeps into a relationship, it has a tendency to expand until it destroys the fabric of it.
Empathy and contempt are both just concepts, but they are powerful ones and are no less influential for being incorporeal. A large, strong, and morally questionable person is able to coerce your body, so early in life you learn the social cues needed for detecting these people (and the places they might hang out) and avoiding them. Contempt has no physical existence, but it's just as big and powerful and unscrupulous. It sits inside your body, manipulating your endocrine system and making itself a comfy little nest in your reptilian brain - but like hanging out with any big, unpleasant, sweaty galoot, it's totally optional if you can but figure out how to get away.
Back when the human superorganism was much more loosely connected, contempt functioned to keep individual tribes and their memetic heritages safe against competition and extinction. There are too many of us now, and we are too closely connected. Vestigial contempt turns us against ourselves. Shake yourself loose, go take a shower, and go find someone nicer to hang out with!
Read more here: FEATURE-Scientist seeks to banish evil, boost empathy via Reuters.com, and here: Predictable Patterns of Marriage Breakdown via MentalHelp.net
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Twisted, Messy, Perfect.
NASA just announced results from an epic experiment some 47 years in the making; the rotation of the Earth does indeed twist and distort the fabric of space-time, and data from a set of the most perfect gyroscopes ever made now confirms this aspect of Einstein's theories of relativity. The gyros, part of the Gravity Probe B satellite experiment, were engineered to an unbelievable degree of precision. The quartz-silicon spheres at the heart of the devices are as close to Euclidean perfection as the human race has yet been able to achieve, and the slight observed precession of their spins over time, as predicted by Einstein, measured the relativistic "frame drag" created by Earth's great mass rotating at the bottom of its gravity well.
I'm impressed. The scope of this experiment is amazing, and it speaks volumes about our drive to understand the reality that contains us. The world is messy, and creating precision is one valid reaction to the chaos. A ruler brings order - we can begin to fence off little pieces of the infinite fields of data available, testing pieces one against the other so that we can begin to make some sense of the constant riot that surrounds us.
Does precision oppose chaos, or does it pay respect to it? The Universe will never be precise, but by creating precision we can perhaps enjoy the mess a little more.
I'm impressed. The scope of this experiment is amazing, and it speaks volumes about our drive to understand the reality that contains us. The world is messy, and creating precision is one valid reaction to the chaos. A ruler brings order - we can begin to fence off little pieces of the infinite fields of data available, testing pieces one against the other so that we can begin to make some sense of the constant riot that surrounds us.
Does precision oppose chaos, or does it pay respect to it? The Universe will never be precise, but by creating precision we can perhaps enjoy the mess a little more.
Outside of the Box
We live in a box we can't see out of. Quite literally, because light has a speed (186,000 miles per second), as we look out into the night sky, the farther out we look the farther back in time we see. And since the Universe has an age (our best current guess is just shy of 14 billion years), it has an observable limit. More Universe surely exists beyond the limit of our visibility some 45.7 billion light years away*...but we won't ever get to see it.
Not only that, but we won't personally get to see most bits of the universe that are inside the observable limit, simply because what's going on there "now" won't be visible to us til the light reaches us. A star 7,000 light years away from us could have ceased to exist yesterday, and we won't know it for another 7000+ years. To us, that star is still shining. Light and time, those phenomena easily detected by our senses, have set boundaries around us. Even though the geocentric theory of creation has been roundly debunked on several orders of magnitude, in one very important way it is still valid. The point of observation is, by definition, the center of the observable universe.
We still keep searching for ways to escape the box, though. We keep dreaming up new theories, testing and wringing new data from the stuff that makes up our physical reality. We sit at the center of the Universe, but the edges of it are right here as well, nested in the folds of the human mind.
Read more here: Five weird theories of what lies outside the universe via io9.com and here: Observable Universe via Wikipedia.org
*The Universe is expanding at an apparently increasing rate. This means that what we can see is farther away than the age of the Universe in years times the speed of light, because space keeps getting "bigger." Weird enough for ya yet?
Not only that, but we won't personally get to see most bits of the universe that are inside the observable limit, simply because what's going on there "now" won't be visible to us til the light reaches us. A star 7,000 light years away from us could have ceased to exist yesterday, and we won't know it for another 7000+ years. To us, that star is still shining. Light and time, those phenomena easily detected by our senses, have set boundaries around us. Even though the geocentric theory of creation has been roundly debunked on several orders of magnitude, in one very important way it is still valid. The point of observation is, by definition, the center of the observable universe.
We still keep searching for ways to escape the box, though. We keep dreaming up new theories, testing and wringing new data from the stuff that makes up our physical reality. We sit at the center of the Universe, but the edges of it are right here as well, nested in the folds of the human mind.
Read more here: Five weird theories of what lies outside the universe via io9.com and here: Observable Universe via Wikipedia.org
*The Universe is expanding at an apparently increasing rate. This means that what we can see is farther away than the age of the Universe in years times the speed of light, because space keeps getting "bigger." Weird enough for ya yet?
Monday, May 2, 2011
Plato's Revenge
For Plato, ideas were the only true reality - famously, he compared the material objects we interact with on a day to day basis to shadows of "true objects" projected onto the wall of a cave. We've spent the past 2,400 years (give or take) either simply disbelieving him or arguing one direction or another over what his Theory of Forms actually meant.
The development of memetics - the study of ideas as life forms - explains a little more about what Plato may have been thinking, and the evolution of the Internet provides a visible ground that can show us in very concrete terms how ideas mate, evolve, and die off - and how we give ourselves to them, how we are controlled by them, and how they compete for our attention. A really fabulous article by James Gleick on the Smithsonian site pulls all of the major threads of this new discipline together in an entertaining and readable four pages. Put aside the ten minutes to read it and make yourself a cup of tea, because this is important stuff.
When you say that someone "died for his principles," you are describing the concrete result of a powerful intangible. The concept of nationality is a meme, as is religion, as are the tenets of every culture, and as is the viral spread of our individual emotional reactions to any event. When the Greeks described their gods, they were personifying memetic currents that they very clearly sensed flowing throughout their society. Just like the Greek gods, memes have no inherent morality. They play by their own rules, and the strong ones may easily crush any mere mortals that stand in their way. For centuries we have lived blindly enslaved by them - but at last we are developing both the technology and the awareness to study and understand them - and perhaps, with hope, to tame the worst of them.
Read more here: What Defines a Meme? via Smithsonianmag.com
The development of memetics - the study of ideas as life forms - explains a little more about what Plato may have been thinking, and the evolution of the Internet provides a visible ground that can show us in very concrete terms how ideas mate, evolve, and die off - and how we give ourselves to them, how we are controlled by them, and how they compete for our attention. A really fabulous article by James Gleick on the Smithsonian site pulls all of the major threads of this new discipline together in an entertaining and readable four pages. Put aside the ten minutes to read it and make yourself a cup of tea, because this is important stuff.
When you say that someone "died for his principles," you are describing the concrete result of a powerful intangible. The concept of nationality is a meme, as is religion, as are the tenets of every culture, and as is the viral spread of our individual emotional reactions to any event. When the Greeks described their gods, they were personifying memetic currents that they very clearly sensed flowing throughout their society. Just like the Greek gods, memes have no inherent morality. They play by their own rules, and the strong ones may easily crush any mere mortals that stand in their way. For centuries we have lived blindly enslaved by them - but at last we are developing both the technology and the awareness to study and understand them - and perhaps, with hope, to tame the worst of them.
Read more here: What Defines a Meme? via Smithsonianmag.com
Compassion In The Wake Of The Storm
Our new ability to connect immediately and effectively without regard for distance is fundamentally changing the concept of what it means to be human. The tornadoes that ripped through the heart of America last week are a tragedy on every level, but in the tracks left by those massive twisters we are seeing the blossoming of empathy: photos and personal papers released by the storms, often hundreds of miles away from the homes where they belong, are being collected and returned to their rightful owners via special pages posted on social networking sites.
We often wonder what use Facebook really is, but here's one answer. It is a tool to expand our compassion and our humanity. People who have lost everything they owned to the storms are receiving more than just lost photographs - they're receiving the love of their fellow humans, empathy and solace across the miles. Disaster these days draws us together more than it ever has, and our strength lies there.
Read more here: Memories Lost to a Whirlwind Alight on Facebook to Be Claimed via NYTimes.com
We often wonder what use Facebook really is, but here's one answer. It is a tool to expand our compassion and our humanity. People who have lost everything they owned to the storms are receiving more than just lost photographs - they're receiving the love of their fellow humans, empathy and solace across the miles. Disaster these days draws us together more than it ever has, and our strength lies there.
Read more here: Memories Lost to a Whirlwind Alight on Facebook to Be Claimed via NYTimes.com
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
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
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 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
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