2011年5月31日星期二

The Argumentative Theory




THE NATURALNESS OF (MANY) SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: EVOLVED COGNITION AS THEIR FOUNDATION

PBoyer
Pascal Boyer and Michael Petersen in Journal of Institutional Economics (forthcoming):
General accounts of social institutions should provide plausible and testable answers to questions of institutional design, such as, why do social institutions have the specific features that we observe in human societies? Why do we observe common institutional features in otherwise very different cultural environments? Or, why do some institutions seem natural and compelling to participants, while others are considered alien or coercive? Here we develop the view that present institutional theories do not properly address such design questions, and that this can be remedied only by taking into account what we call the ‘naturalness’ of institutions, their connection to human expectations and preferences that result from evolution by natural selection. This perspective may help us understand commonalities across cultures, but alsowhy some institutions are more successful and compelling than others and why they change in particular directions.
To some extent, this suggestion echoes a defining feature of the neoinstitutional approach. From the beginning, neo-institutionalism has been oriented towards developing realistic models of the actors, countering the Homo oeconomicus model inherent in older institutional accounts and emphasizing the cognitive limits of human decision makers (Brousseau and Glachant, 2008). From this perspective, important lines of inquiry have been developed with regards to, first, how institutions carry a range of unintended consequences given the cognitive limits of their designers, and, second, how a function of institutions is to counter such limits (North, 1990). At the same time, however, this perspective of bounded rationality provides only a partial description of human cognition. While one line of research within the cognitive sciences has been preoccupied with the biased and fallible nature of human cognition, a complementary line of research has developed the view that human cognition is in fact ‘better than rational’ (Cosmides and Tooby, 1994). Evolutionary psychologists have argued that human cognition includes a multitude of domain-specific cognitive programs, each optimally geared (within evolutionary constraints) to solve particular problems in the course of human evolutionary history (Barkow et al., 1992). The inferential power of these specialized programs comes from their content-rich nature. That is, they are loaded with inbuilt assumptions about their domain. Environments that fit these inbuilt assumptions appear intuitive and readily understandable.
Our aim is to outline the argument that institutions are effective not despite human cognition but, in part, because of human cognition. Essentially, we argue that the content-rich nature of evolved intuitions provides a foundation which can be and is often used in the design of many social institutions. Institutions that fit these intuitions, we propose, develop more easily, require less effort to conform to and are more culturally stable

read more: Pascal Boyer and Michael Petersen 

THE BILINGUAL ADVANTAGE

From The New York Times:
CONV-popupA cognitive neuroscientist, Ellen Bialystok has spent almost 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind. Her good news: Among other benefits, the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms. Dr. Bialystok, 62, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, was awarded a $100,000 Killam Prize last year for her contributions to social science.
Q. So what exactly did you find on this unexpected road?
A. As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language. But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.
Q. How does this work — do you understand it?
A. Yes. There’s a system in your brain, the executive control system. It’s a general manager. Its job is to keep you focused on what is relevant, while ignoring distractions. It’s what makes it possible for you to hold two different things in your mind at one time and switch between them. If you have two languages and you use them regularly, the way the brain’s networks work is that every time you speak, both languages pop up and the executive control system has to sort through everything and attend to what’s relevant in the moment. Therefore the bilinguals use that system more, and it’s that regular use that makes that system more efficient.
More here.

城市一孤舟

 Illusion & Surrealism on the Behance Network

难测猫心

Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of cats?
Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of cats?

路人

this isn't happiness.™

流浪不等于迷失

EIKNARF

What do you do ? Deepak Chopra

Question: Beyond a simple title, how would you describe what you do for a living?
Deepak Chopra: I sing my song for a living, and I don’t really worry about who listens or what they think. But it seems to make a living.
Question: What is transcendental meditation?
Deepak Chopra: Transcendental meditation is one particular form of mantra meditation – and there are many – that allows your mind to experience progressively abstract fields of awareness. And ultimately you settle down in the space between your thoughts. The space between your thoughts is pure consciousness, and it’s a field of possibilities. It’s a field of creativity. It’s a field of correlation. It’s also a field of uncertainty. And it’s also a field where intention actualizes its own fulfillment. So that meditation allows you to contact this field, which is very primordial – the ground state of our existence.
Question: What is the relationship between quantum mechanics and the healing process?
Deepak Chopra: According to our current understanding of the universe, the physical universe is actually made up of energy and information. Wherever there are objects, there are fields of energy and also information. And if you go to the very fundamental levels of activity in nature, you’ll find that nature is a discontinuity. Which means even though our perceptual experience of the universe is continuous, in fact it’s going on and off at the speed of light. We know what’s in the “on” of the universe. It’s energy and information. We use it in our technology when we use cell phones, or surf the information highway on the Internet, or send each other e-mail.
But the deeper question is what’s in the “off”? What’s between the two “ons” in the discontinuity?
And many people in the world of quantum physics are realizing, or thinking, or hypothesizing that that discontinuity is consciousness itself; that consciousness is not a byproduct of evolution as has been suggested. Or for that matter, an expression of our brains, although it expresses itself through our brains. But consciousness is the common ground of existence that ultimately differentiates into space, time, energy, information and matter. And the same consciousness is responsible for our thoughts, for our emotions and feelings, for our behaviors, for our personal relationships, for our social interactions, for the environments that we find ourselves in, and for our biology. In other words, consciousness is the common ground that differentiates into everything that we call reality, including the observer and the objects of our observation. And this is a much deeper understanding of consciousness that is coming about as a result of some insights from the world of quantum physics.
Not everyone agrees on this theory. In fact, a number of scientists are still tied to the old paradigm, which is that matter is the essential reality, and that consciousness is the anti-phenomenon.
But it turns out that even to explain simple things; How do you perceive color? How do you imagine? How do you see pictures in consciousness and hear sounds in consciousness? You have to recognize that this cannot be explained by any reductionist model. When you experience a sound, or a color, or a taste, or a smell, the activity in your brain is just a quart of charges that goes on and off. How does that quart of charges going on and off become physical reality, and where does that happen?
If you understand this model of quantum physics, then it becomes apparent that we’re not in the physical world. The physical world is in us. We create the physical world when we perceive it, when we observe it. And also we create this experience in our imagination. And when I say “we,” I don’t mean the physical body or the brain, but a deeper domain of consciousness which conceives, governs, constructs and actually becomes everything that we call physical reality.
This is a model that is being explored by some academic scientists working in the field of neuroscience, and also in the field of quantum physics. But it is also a model that was explored by the great sages and seers, some of which were the authors of the Bhagavad Gita itself.
Question: How do you reconcile your medical training with spirituality?
Deepak Chopra: My medical training was in the field of internalityicine, and then in the field of endocrinology and neuron endocrinology.
Neuro endocrinology is the study of brain chemicals, and brain chemicals are the mechanics through which our thoughts express themselves. So when you have a thought, or a feeling, or an emotion, or an idea, you make a very specific chemical. It’s called a neuron peptide. And these neuron peptides are messenger molecules that then go to the rest of the body and influence the activity of the immune system and actually almost every biological activity in the body. So your body, which is very physical, is under the influence of your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your dreams, your fantasies, your desires, your instincts, your drives, your imagination. All these things orchestrate themselves – all these internal activities that are in the invisible domain that we call consciousness actually have very precise physical effects both in our biology, but they also influence our perception of the world.
Question: Why do you study aging?
Deepak Chopra: Well over the years, I’ve looked at the biological molecules of aging. And these include things like blood pressure, bone density, body temperature regulation, skin thickness, the number of wrinkles, immune function, sex hormone levels, hearing, vision. There are a number of ways you can measure what we call biological aging. Then there’s something called “chronological aging”, which is from the date you were born. And then there’s “psychological age,” which is how young you feel psychologically.
And there is more and more data that the biological molecules of aging are more under the influence of psychological factors than the chronological age that we usually associate with. Of course there are other things that influence our aging process, including how we perceive time. If you’re constantly running out of time, then your biological clock speeds up, and you do run out of time with a heart attack or something like that. The quality of our self-esteem determines how we age. Our perception of our bodies as fields of energy or fields of matter influence how our body ages.
And there are many other things – the quality of our rest, as in sleep; the quality of our ability to manage stress through meditation; physical exercise; mind-body coordination through techniques such as yoga, and breathing, and martial arts; the quality of our relationships – whether we have toxic relationships or healing relationships; the quality of our emotions – toxic emotions or emotions that foster connectivity. These all influence how we age.
Aging is subject to revision, so you’re going to have somebody who is chronologically 80, but could be biologically 65. On the other hand you could have someone who is chronologically 25, but they are physically and mentally burnt out. And biologically they could be much older.
The fastest growing segment of the population in the world right now is over the age of 90, and in some cases over the age of 100 in some countries. So people are living longer. And even though much of it is attributed to modern medicine, it’s not. It’s lifestyle. It’s nutrition. It’s the quality of exercise, the ability to manage stress, and some of the factors that I mentioned.
Question: Can people change how they age?
Deepak Chopra: I think everybody plays a role in their own aging. Some people accelerate it. Some people slow it down. Some people manage to reverse it. It all depends on how much you are invested in the hypnosis of our social condition. So if you believe that at a certain age you have to die and you become dysfunctional, then you will.
Question: What is the joy in what you do?
Deepak Chopra: The joy in what I do is mostly creativity. I think creativity is an ecstatic impulse that we all have. And there's nothing more joyful than having a moment of creative insight and actually creating, or rather manifesting or incarnating your creative insight into actual, physical reality.
Question: What is the struggle in what you do?
Deepak Chopra: The joy in what I do is mostly creativity. I think creativity is an ecstatic impulse that we all have. And there's nothing more joyful than having a moment of creative insight and actually creating, or rather manifesting or incarnating your creative insight into actual, physical reality.
The struggle is part of the creative process, and it's very enjoyable to have the struggle. Without the struggle, there would be no joy in creativity.
The one thing that is not enjoyable is if you get attached to the outcome. And if you're constantly looking for approval and you are not immune to criticism, then you are in trouble, and you will continue to be struggling and never find the creative impulse.
Question: What are the recurring themes in your work?
Deepak Chopra: The themes that run through all my work are that consciousness is the ultimate reality; and that by understanding consciousness, you understand everything about yourself, about perception, about creativity, about behavior, about relationships.
By understanding consciousness, you have the ability to create anything in your world. And you have the ability to influence also the collective consciousness to not only bring about personal healing, but social transformation, and ultimately healing our planet, which happens to be extremely wounded.
In the Upanishads, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, they say, “Know that one thing by learning which everything else is known.” And that one thing is consciousness.

Recorded on: August 17, 2007

Mind Reading: The Researchers Who Analyzed All the Porn on the Internet

By MAIA SZALAVITZ Thursday, May 19, 2011 
Searching all the porn on the Internet might not seem like the most scientifically productive activity, but computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam did it anyway.
For their new book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire, Ogas and Gaddam analyzed the results of 400 million online searches for porn and uncovered some startling insights into what men and women may really want from each other — at least sexually. I spoke recently with Ogas.
Why did you decide to analyze online porn searches?
I'm a computational neuroscientist. I view the mind as software. Most computational neuroscientists study higher functions like memory, language and vision. We wanted to apply the same techniques to a lower part of the brain, the sexual part.
So is "Rule 34" true — that if you can imagine it, there's porn of it?
When we first started, Rule 34 was almost a guiding idea. The Internet has every kind of imaginable porn; searches are going to reflect immense diversity. We quickly realized that [the data] didn't really support that.
Even though you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine, people search for and spend money and time on 20 sexual interests, which account for 80% of all porn. The top five are youth, gays, [sexy mothers], breasts and cheating wives.
Why are cheating wives so popular? You'd expect that would not be something men would like to think about.
It's one of the top interests all around the world. Men are wired to be sexually jealous. And, certainly, men can fly into murderous rages, but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused.
This is an example of what biologists call a sperm competition cue. Across the animal kingdom, when males see other males mating, it tends to provoke arousal. If he is going to compete with the other male, he has to produce more sperm
Human men also respond like this, if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused.
There's been a lot of concern that porn is getting more violent and more misogynistic and that the Internet is making it harder for women because porn makes men want more extreme sex. What does your research show?
It's not at all more violent or misogynistic. We really looked at all porn searches. Truly violent pornography is extremely rare. It truly is rare and the kind of people who watch it are a clearly identifiable group.
So why do we keep hearing that it's getting worse and worse?
I wouldn't say there's a trend. It's been pretty consistent. There's lots of male dominant porn. He blackmails the woman into having sex; the professor seduces a student, they're having sex to get cash for schoolbooks. We think all of these are creative variations to trigger male-dominance cues [which are sexually arousing to men].
Why do the themes of dominance and submission keep recurring?
Women are often aroused by women being submissive. It's more complicated for women because of the separation between physical and psychological arousal. Women have very mixed feelings when [it comes to sexual submission]. But rape fantasies are extremely prevalent.
Obviously, that doesn't mean that women want to be raped, but doesn't the prevalence of forced sex in porn make men think that they do?
It's not teaching men to be misogynistic; it doesn't spill over into social life. It's really no different from looking at large breasts. But women react to these psychological elements and understandably and accurately see them as a kind of misogyny.
However, we're talking sex and arousal, not social politics. A rape fantasy doesn't mean a woman really wants to be raped — it's just something that turns [her] on [in the bedroom].
There are real concerns, though, that Internet porn will increase sex crimes because of the way it portrays things like that.
Anybody can do a simple thought experiment [to refute that]. In the late '60s and early '70s, feminists were saying that porn trained guys to be rapists. That was before home video, and there were probably only 100 different porn magazines in the country. You had to go to [sleazy places to watch porn]. Now there are a million websites where you can get it for free around the clock.
You would expect rape to skyrocket. There are more guys watching more porn more often. But, in fact, rape has gone down in America. Also, in Japan in the mid-'90s, they loosened their obscenity laws. Now rape is down there too. It certainly seems to be case that more access to porn is associated with less rape. Rather than making people want to go out and rape, it satisfies the urge.
What types of porn are most popular for men?
It's youth by a wide margin, like cheerleaders. But we were surprised to find that even though men prefer youth mostly, there's also a very significant interest in porn with women in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. That's called granny porn.
That's fabulous for older women who seem to have been written off by evolutionary psychology. Seriously, though, the interest appears to be completely counter to evolutionary predictions that overt signs of fertility are crucial.
Yes, we found something that overturns narrow evolutionary psychology predictions. Some of our findings require other explanations than evolutionary ones.
What do women prefer?
Women prefer stories to visual porn by a long shot. The most popular erotica for women is the romance novel. That has more punch than any other kind of erotica. The second most popular would be fan fiction. This is something that has really exploded on the Internet. These are stories written by amateurs, mostly women, about characters from pop culture, movies, books, etc.
Is this the kind of thing in which Kirk and Spock from Star Trek would have an affair?
Yes, that's called slash. Stories about two male characters are very popular. But the most popular fan fiction is about Harry Potter by a wide margin, followed by Twilight.
Why do women prefer stories and men prefer visuals?
There are two reasons. Both come down to fundamental differences between the male sexual brain and the female sexual brain. One of the most basic differences is that the male brain responds to any single sexual stimulus. A nice chest, two girls kissing, older women — if that's what they're attracted to. Any one thing will trigger arousal in a male.
Female desire requires multiple stimuli simultaneously or in quick succession. It takes more stimuli and more variety of these stimuli to trigger genuine arousal.
For a guy, the most common form of [masturbation material] is a 60-second porn clip. For a woman, it can be a 250-page novel or a 2,000-word story. That's the way to get multiple stimuli. Stories have greater flexibility to offer a greater variety of stimuli.
In male erotica, sex appears in the first one-quarter of the story [or film]. For women, it's halfway in. There's more time to develop the character before sex.
How else does male and female sexuality differ?
Another fundamental difference between men and women — perhaps the most important defining difference — is that in the male brain, physical and psychological arousal are united. If a man is physically turned on, he's mentally turned on too.
With women, physical arousal and mental arousal are separate. [Research finds that women get physically aroused sometimes even when they find the situation disgusting.] The female brain is designed to be cautious, most likely because historically the woman who slept with the first guy she met might have a harder time raising children; he might not stick around. Women are designed to be cautious and gather more information.
That's why fan fiction is all about exploring the emotions and character of the hero. In romance novels, the heroine learns about the secret inner life of the hero. That's especially true in slash: that's doubling up. There are two men — two masculine, strong alpha males who reveal their tender side. The emotional process of revealing true character is what's so appealing to women.
Why would straight men want to watch lesbians, and why would women write stories about gay men?
[Straight] guys are turn on by lesbians because it's a doubling of visual cues. And one psychological cue for arousal in men is female sexual pleasure. Seeing lesbians kissing doubles that too.
For women in slash fiction, it's the psychological cues of a man's character, stature, passion and emotional communication — slash doubles those.
What's up with men's interest in mothers?
It's not so much that they're moms, but that they're older women. They are usually portrayed as aggressive and seductive. They are not timid. They're quite confident and bold. Men who like that like the idea of an innocent younger man being seduced or taught by an older woman.
Did you find evidence that porn is addictive?
We looked at individual search histories for half a million people using an AOL data set [which does not identify the users]. It seems to be less than 2% of people, among the people who search for porn, who have a significantly elevated number of searches.
And there's a [shared] characteristic among these searchers: they search for a really wide variety of porn, which is atypical. Usually, people search for the same things over and over. But these people who search for notably more porn tend to search for [many different things].
Two things tend to show up in these searches, oddly: bestiality and granny porn. There's clearly something different about that group. Having said that, there isn't overwhelming evidence that porn addiction exists. Probably the best way to define whether it's a problem is if you want to stop and you can't.


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/19/mind-reading-the-researchers-who-analyzed-all-the-porn-on-the-internet/#ixzz1Nup0G7lV