March 9th, 2010

significant objects

The blog Un-canny Ontology recently took a look at the website significantobjects.com from the point of view of Heidegger’s object-orientated philosophy.

For those of you not familiar with the site significantobjects.com, the goal of the site was to see if given significance, random everyday objects could take on objective significance, as well. As the site explains:

A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!

As demonstrated from some of the entries, these objects are not “rare” or “important” objects by any means. In fact a lot of the times these objects are purchased from thrift stores or garage sales for just a couple of bucks (max). A “fictional” account of the object’s significance is added and then sold and bought on eBay – usually purchased for way more than the item was originally worth. But what I find fascinating about this experiment is that it is purposefully doing something that we often do without thinking about it – that is, adding significance to objects. This led me to question, what is significance and how/why is it important for our understanding of object-oriented philosophy?

More of that post here.

Significant Objects is an interesting experiment, although I would argue that a lot of the significance created around these objects comes from the fact that they are featured on the website as part of the project, and not necessarily from the made-up stories.

March 3rd, 2010

the experiencing self vs. the remembering self

Widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics.

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy — and our own self-awareness.

From TED Talks 2010

March 1st, 2010

the cinema as chapel

It’s easy to dismiss science fiction and other genre movies (and books, and games) as mindless entertainment. But the reason for the popularity of Star Wars, Twilight, and Lord of the Rings can’t simply be that our culture craves vapid adventure stories to while away the idle hours. I think we consume these modern epics because, for many of us, traditional institutions don’t cut it anymore. Church, family. and government once handed over fairly rigid instructions on “how to live”: how to be a good citizen, neighbor, spouse, or parent. The cultural revolution of the 1960s and ’70s changed all that. Vietnam, political assassinations, government corruption, and the rise of the corporate state left us suspicious of conventional authority and religion. We got jaded.

Is it no wonder, then, that many now seek moral guidance and spiritual example not in mosques and chapels, but huddled in darkened movie theaters or bathed in the holy glow of our Blu-rays? Our new gods and priests might be writers, movie directors, and actors. When, in The Lord of the Rings, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf the wise intones to Frodo, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us,” it’s hard not to prick up our hobbity ears and nod our heads in agreement. Yes, that’s damned good advice. And for many of us, it’s guidance much easier to swallow than the kind shouted from the pulpit on a Sunday morning.

More.

February 28th, 2010

how and why we lie to ourselves

The excellent Psyblog has a fascinating post on cognitive dissonance. It picks apart a deliciously deceptive 1959 psychological experiment in order to help us understand how and why we lie to ourselves when confronted with opposing ideas/feelings that we desire to be reconciled.

The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back. The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University…

Read on.

Now did I really think that was a fascinating post or have I just convinced myself of that? Well I’m quite sure it’s genuinely interesting and worth a read. :)

February 25th, 2010

the psychology of possibility

The Boston Globe has an interesting bio of phsychologist Ellen Langer:

Langer is a famous psychologist poised to get much more famous, but not in the ways most researchers do. She is best known for two things: her concept of mindlessness – the idea that much of what we believe to be rational thought is in fact just our brains on autopilot – and her concept of mindfulness, the idea that simply paying attention to our everyday lives can make us happier and healthier. She was Harvard’s first tenured woman professor of psychology, and her discoveries helped trigger, among other things, the burgeoning positive-psychology movement. Her 1989 book, “Mindfulness,” was an international bestseller, and she remains in high demand as a speaker everywhere from New York’s 92d Street Y to the leadership guru Tony Robbins’s Fiji resort. And now a movie about her life is in development with Jennifer Aniston signed on to star as Langer.

While other researchers might blanch at the Hollywoodization of their work, for Langer it’s almost an organic development – part of a long journey to bring the message of her research to the masses. Langer’s reputation in the field of social psychology rests on a set of ingenious experiments that expose the strange power of the mind to fool itself and to transform the body. In one of her best-known studies, she found that giving nursing home residents more control over their lives made them live longer. In more recent work, she made hotel maids lose weight simply by telling them that their work burned as many calories as a typical workout. And in the study at the center of the Aniston movie, a team led by Langer found that instructing a group of elderly men to talk and act as if they were 20 years younger could reverse the aging process.

Read more at the Boston Globe. (via 3qd)

February 23rd, 2010

d.h. lawrence and the second brain

Speaking of the second brain… A friend has brought it to my attention that D. H. Lawrence has written with tremendous relish on the subject of the second brain, or solar plexus:

In that little book, “Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious,” I tried rather wistfully to convince you, dear reader, that you had a solar plexus and a lumbar ganglion and a few other things. I don’t know why I took the trouble. If a fellow doesn’t believe he’s got a nose, the best way to convince him is gently to waft a little pepper into his nostrils. And there was I painting my own nose purple, and wistfully inviting you to look and believe. No more, though.

You’ve got first and foremost a solar plexus, dear reader; and the solar plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your stomach. I can’t be accused of impropriety or untruth, because any book of science or medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will show it to you quite plainly. So don’t wriggle or try to look spiritual. Because, willy-nilly, you’ve got a solar plexus, dear reader, among other things. I’m writing a good sound science book, which there’s no gainsaying.

Now, your solar plexus, most gentle of readers, is where you are you. It is your first and greatest and deepest center of consciousness. If you want to know _how_ conscious and _when_ conscious, I must refer you to that little book, “Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious.”

At your solar plexus you are primarily conscious: there, behind you stomach. There you have the profound and pristine conscious awareness that you are you. Don’t say you haven’t. I know you have. You might as well try to deny the nose on your face. There is your first and deepest seat of awareness. There you are triumphantly aware of your own individual existence in the universe. Absolutely there is the keep and central stronghold of your triumphantly-conscious self. There you _are_, and you know it. So stick out your tummy gaily, my dear, with a _Me voilà_. With a _Here I am!_ With an _Ecco mi!_ With a _Da bin ich!_ There you are, dearie.

(from read print)

And:

The primal consciousness in man is pre-mental, and has nothing to do with cognition. It is the same as in the animals. And this pre-mental consciousness remains as long as we live the powerful root and body of our consciousness. The mind is but the last flower, the _cul de sac_.

The first seat of our primal consciousnesses the solar plexus, the great
nerve-center situated behind the stomach. From this center we are first dynamically conscious. For the primal consciousness is always dynamic, and never, like mental consciousness, static. Thought, let us say what we will about its magic powers, is instrumental only, the soul’s finest instrument for the business of living. Thought is just a means to action and living. But life and action take rise actually at the great centers of dynamic consciousness.

The solar plexus, the greatest and most important center of our dynamic consciousness, is a sympathetic center. At this main center of your first-mind we know as we can never mentally know. Primarily we know, each man, each living creature knows, profoundly and satisfactorily and without question, that _I am I._ This root of all knowledge and being is established in the solar plexus; it is dynamic, pre-mental knowledge, such as cannot be transferred into thought. Do
not ask me to transfer the pre-mental dynamic knowledge into thought. It cannot be done. The knowledge that _I am I_ can never be thought: only known.

This being the very first term of our life-knowledge, a knowledge established physically and psychically the moment the two parent nuclei fused, at the moment of the conception, it remains integral as a piece of knowledge in every subsequent nucleus derived from this one original. But yet the original nucleus, formed from the two parent nuclei at our conception, remains always primal and central, and is always the original fount and home of the first and supreme knowledge that _I am I._ This original nucleus is embodied in the solar plexus.

(from online literature)

Terrific! Thanks very much, Alice.

See also this glorious diagram of the network of nerves in the abdomen, including the celiac plexus or solar plexus @ wikipedia).

February 21st, 2010

the second human brain

Scientific American:

Technically known as the enteric nervous system, the second brain consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, or alimentary canal, which measures about nine meters end to end from the esophagus to the anus. The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system, Gershon says.

This multitude of neurons in the enteric nervous system enables us to “feel” the inner world of our gut and its contents. Much of this neural firepower comes to bear in the elaborate daily grind of digestion. Breaking down food, absorbing nutrients, and expelling of waste requires chemical processing, mechanical mixing and rhythmic muscle contractions that move everything on down the line.

Scientific American now has a fascinating article about our “second brain” — a sheath of nerves in our gut which has the power to influence our feelings/mood, as well as outsourcing a lot of the orchestration of our bowel movements and digestion. It can affect our mood and sense of well-being, and it’s the source of the “butterflies in the stomach” phenomenon.

Addendum: D. H. Lawrence has written on the subject!

February 7th, 2010

dimethyltryptamine or: how I learnt to stop worrying and love dreaming

If one hypothesis holds true, consciousness can be viewed as a sort of stabilized psychedelic trip.

Several speculative and yet untested hypotheses suggest that endogenous DMT, produced in the human brain, is involved in certain psychological and neurological states. DMT is naturally produced in small amounts in the brain and other tissues of humans and other mammals. Some believe it plays a role in mediating the visual effects of natural dreaming, and also near-death experiences, religious visions and other mystical states. A biochemical mechanism for this was proposed by the medical researcher J. C. Callaway, who suggested in 1988 that DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain DMT levels are periodically elevated to induce visual dreaming and possibly other natural states of mind. A new hypothesis proposed is that in addition to being involved in altered states of consciousness, endogenous DMT may be involved in the creation of normal waking states of consciousness. It is proposed that DMT and other endogenous hallucinogens mediate their neurological abilities by acting as neurotransmitters at a sub class of the trace amine receptors; a group of receptors found in the CNS where DMT and other hallucinogens have been shown to have activity. Wallach further proposes that in this way waking consciousness can be thought of as a controlled psychedelic experience. It is when the control of these systems becomes loosened and their behavior no longer correlates with the external world that the altered states arise.

Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research in the 1990s at the University of New Mexico, advanced the theory that a massive release of DMT from the pineal gland prior to death or near death was the cause of the near death experience (NDE) phenomenon. Several of his test subjects reported NDE-like audio or visual hallucinations. His explanation for this was the possible lack of panic involved in the clinical setting and possible dosage differences between those administered and those encountered in actual NDE cases. Several subjects also reported contact with ‘other beings’, alien like, insectoid or reptilian in nature, in highly advanced technological environments where the subjects were ‘carried’, ‘probed’, ‘tested’, ‘manipulated’, ‘dismembered’, ‘taught’, ‘loved’ and even ‘raped’ by these ‘beings’. This is most likely due to the setting of where the experiments took place. Many people who use DMT outside of a laboratory never report any of these types of experiences.

Waah! More at wikipedia.

December 29th, 2009

a decade of technological oppression

From NewScientist:

“THE age of melancholy” is how psychologist Daniel Goleman describes our era. People today experience more depression than previous generations, despite the technological wonders that help us every day. It might be because of them.

Our lifestyles are increasingly driven by technology. Phones, computers and the internet pervade our days. There is a constant, nagging need to check for texts and email, to update Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn profiles, to acquire the latest notebook or 3G cellphone.

The author prescribes a triangular approach to breaking free of these shackles of oppression. One must strive for autonomy, a sense of competence, and a sense of relatedness to those around us.

The first is autonomy – the feeling that our activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed. When we feel in control, we are able to organise our priorities and place effective boundaries around them. But when we feel we have insufficient control, it leaves us vulnerable to our impulses and causes us to abdicate decisions to other people. It is easy to see how technology undermines autonomy, but also how to regain it. This may be as simple as switching off mobile phones during meals and family time, setting aside specific times to answer emails, and being available only when we choose to be.

We also need a sense of competence, a belief that our actions are effective. In this respect our relationship with technology is complex, because many of us feel competent when we deal with an email, when we have the newest BlackBerry, or because 50 people enjoyed the holiday snaps we posted on Facebook. But being truly competent must be a continuation of our autonomy: knowing which activities are important to us and carrying them out in the most effectual way possible, making use of technology where applicable.

More at NewScientist. I think that’s enough blogging for today!

December 27th, 2009

jamais vu

animaldneal

It turns out déjà has siblings:

Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before.

Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily doesn’t recognize a word, person, or place that he/she already knows.

The phenomenon is often grouped with déjà vu and presque vu (together, the three are frequently referred to as “The Vus”).

(Jamais vu@wikipedia)

December 24th, 2009

memory goes on, memory goes off

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Photo: LIFE

A new understanding of how memories are stored in the brain.

A strong synapse is needed for cementing a memory, and this process involves making new proteins. But how exactly the body controls this process has not been clear.

Now scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara say their laboratory work on rats shows the production of proteins needed to cement memories can only happen when the RNA – the collection of molecules that take genetic messages from the nucleus to the rest of the cell – is switched on.

Until it is required, the RNA is paralysed by a “silencing” molecule – which itself contains proteins.

When an external signal comes in – for example when one sees something interesting or has an unusual experience – the silencing molecule fragments and the RNA is released.

Could lead to treatments for dementia. (via BBC)

Update: This reminds me of an old post about a woman who can’t forget… Perhaps Jill Price’s memory is jammed in the “on” position!

December 7th, 2009

reverence for life

Hippopotamus-2
Photo: Patrick Gijsbers.

Albert Schweizer:

At sunset of the third day, near the village of Igendja, we moved along an island set in the middle of the wide river. On a sandback [sandbank?] to our left, four hippopotamuses and their young plodded along in our same direction. Just then, in my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase “Reverence for Life” struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read. I realized at once that it carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me. Now I knew that a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us.

(via wikiquote)

Ethics, according to Schweitzer, consists in the compulsion to show toward the will-to-live of each and every being the same reverence as one does to one’s own. Circumstances where we apparently fail to satisfy this compulsion should not lead us to defeatism, since the will-to-live renews itself again and again, as an outcome of an evolutionary necessity and a phenomenon with a spiritual dimension.

The will to live is naturally both parasitic and antagonistic towards other forms of life. Only in the thinking being has the will to live become conscious of other wills to live, and desirous of solidarity with it. This solidarity, however, cannot be brought about, because human life does not escape the puzzling and horrible circumstance that it must live at the cost of other life. But as an ethical being one strives to escape whenever possible from this necessity, and to put a stop to this disunion of the Will to live, so far as it is within one’s power.

Albert Schweitzer nourished hope in a humankind that is more profoundly aware of its position in the Universe. His optimism was based in “belief in truth”. He persistently emphasized the necessity to think, rather than merely acting on basis of passing impulses or by following the most widespread opinions, common among those found ignoring the conflationary elements so apparent in religious identity.

Respect for life, resulting from contemplation on one’s own conscious will to live, leads the individual to live in the service of other people and of every living creature. Schweitzer was much respected for putting his theory into practice in his own life.

(via albert schweizer@wiki)

December 1st, 2009

orange/blue film posters

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An unknown comic author makes an interesting observation.

From SlashFilm:

I’m sure you’re aware of Hollywood’s overuse of floating heads on movie posters… but have you noticed the excessive use of orange/blue contrast on theatrical one-sheets? David Chen happened to come across this comic illustrating the Blue/orange contrast, although I’m not sure where it originated or who created it. After the jump you will see a ton of examples of orange/blue contrast, however I must warn you — as the comic says, once you see it, you’ll notice it everywhere.

This phenomenon was something I was vaguely aware of but never consciously thought about. Looking at their examples it all seems very familiar.

See the examples @ /Film

November 29th, 2009

active imagination

From wikipedia:

Carl Jung developed this technique as one of several that would define his distinctive contribution to the practice of psychotherapy. Active imagination is a method for visualizing unconscious issues by letting them act themselves out. Active imagination can be done by visualization (which is how Jung himself did it), which can be considered similar in technique at least to shamanic journeying. Active imagination can also be done by automatic writing, or by artistic activities such as dance, music, painting, sculpting, ceramics, crafts, etc. Doing Active imagination permits the thoughtforms of the unconscious, or inner ’self’, and of the totality of the psyche, to act out whatever messages they are trying to communicate to the conscious mind.

Following this line of thought, one should surely deem it not only healthy but essential to engage in some sort of creative pursuit from time to time. Read more at Wikipedia.

See also: Jung’s mandala.

November 27th, 2009

creativity is a skittish tortoise

I enjoyed this video, in which John Cleese recounts how he discovered his creativity and explains his understanding of how it works.

He describes creativity as being like a tortoise, for whom — if you wish to entice him out of his hiding place — you must create a safe enclosure. To do this, Cleese tells us, you must create boundaries of time and space; set aside a certain amount of time, and find yourself somewhere where you will not be distracted or disturbed.

Cleese also has some ideas about the role, in creativity, of the unconscious mind (that I find sometimes dubious but nevertheless interesting), and some very weak jokes injected into his presentation seemingly with the intention of endearing himself to his Flemish audience (instead he comes off as patronizing, but I think he’s just too self-conscious).

(via FreshCreation)

November 27th, 2009

why does thinking require effort?

Someone on reddit has posed this interesting question, and many people have chimed in to offer their ideas. The question is: Why is it so easy to drift through thoughts, daydreaming, whereas to actually plough new ground — to challenge what you know — takes effort? Surely there’d be a great evolutionary benefit in not having to try hard to think?

One person suggests that it’s a way to conserve energy; The brain’s fuel is glucose and it must be used sparingly lest one’s reserves be depleted.

Another user, medical student ‘Burlap6′, thinks this logic is faulty as, according to him, glucose levels are regulated by the body and only run out when there are no more bodily tissues left to convert into glucose (i.e., practically never). He continues:

I believe the ‘difficulty’ in thinking stems from one main point: Memory of any concept, fact, or sensory input requires the formation of sensitisations and desensitisations of neuron receptors and neurotransmitter release in specific ways, places, and amounts (INCREDIBLY complex). These sensitisations and desensitisations only take a real foothold in our neural pathways after repeated use of the neurons which act when processing a certain input or thought. It is not fully understood yet, but in the most simple terms, its hard because memory takes time to develop.

Read the thread at reddit.

November 25th, 2009

a tissue, a tissue!

xx-napkin

Is a tissue all you see above?

This page reveals the significance that the above image has for some, and serves as a fun reminder of how our brain is wired as a problem-solving machine with masses of information stored for quick-access and association. (via kottke)

November 2nd, 2009

which came first: the quale egg or the self

Not quail; quale.

Rrrrrrrrrama rrrrrrrreckons that the experience of a self is a predominantly human phenomenon that co-evolved with our ability to be consciously aware of certain stimuli, socalled qualia. (via 3qd)

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