Horny men spend; Horny chicks volunteer
DharmaTroll
<<The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they
would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition - for
example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving that
money. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they
would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating
condition. There was no mating effect on women's consumption
decisions, nor any mating effect on men's volunteering. This study
confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous
charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating
opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating
display.>>
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427392.700-sex-and-shopping--its-a-guy-thing.html?full=true
Sex and shopping – it's a guy thing
01 January 2010 by Geoffrey Miller
Extracted from Spent: Sex, evolution and the secrets of consumerism by
Geoffrey Miller, Copyright © Geoffrey Miller 2009
PEOPLE have radically diverse responses to the very idea of
conspicuous consumption. Some folks consider it blindingly obvious
that most economic behaviour is driven by status seeking, social
signalling and sexual solicitation. These include most Marxists,
marketers, working-class fundamentalists and divorced women. Other
folks consider this an outrageously cynical view, and argue that most
consumption is for individual pleasure ("utility") and family
prosperity ("security"). Those folks include most capitalists,
economists, upper-class fundamentalists, and soon-to-be-divorced men.
Such differences of opinion can rarely be resolved by trading examples
or anecdotes, or arguing from first principles. It more often helps to
apply some psychology. With this in mind, some colleagues and I
devised a series of experiments inspired by "costly signalling theory"
- the idea that animals, including humans, use costly, intricate and
hard-to-fake signals to flaunt their biological fitness to potential
mates and social partners. Our goal was to see how thinking about
mating influences people's decisions about spending and giving
(Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 93, p 85).
Our goal was to see how thinking about mating affects people's
decisions about spending and giving
In the first experiment the team, led by Vladas Griskevicius from
Arizona State University in Tempe and Josh Tybur from the University
of New Mexico in Albuquerque, invited college students to the lab in
small groups. Each was randomly assigned to one of two conditions:
"mating" or "non-mating". The mating subjects looked at three
photographs of people of the opposite-sex on a computer screen, picked
which one they thought most desirable, and spent a few minutes writing
about an ideal first date with that person. The non-mating subjects
looked at a street scene photograph and spent the same amount of time
writing about the ideal weather for walking around and looking at the
buildings it featured.
Then, all subjects were asked to imagine that they had a modest
windfall of money, such as a lottery win of a few thousand dollars,
and must choose how much they wanted to spend on a variety of
conspicuous luxuries - such as a new watch, European vacation or new
car - and how much they would save in a bank account. They were then
asked to imagine that they had some extra time available per week, and
were asked to choose how many hours they would spend volunteering -
such as working at a homeless shelter or helping at a children's
hospital.
The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they would
spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition - for
example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving that
money - but there was no mating effect on women's consumption
decisions. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they
would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating
condition. There was no mating effect on men's volunteering. This
study confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous
charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating
opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating
display.
Because costly signalling theory suggests that signals must be
conspicuous and publicly observable in order to attract friends or
mates, we wanted to see whether this mating effect applied especially
to conspicuous rather than inconspicuous consumption and volunteering.
So in a second experiment, another set of college students were
randomly assigned to similar mating or non-mating conditions. Then,
subjects indicated how much money they would want to spend on the same
conspicuous consumption luxuries from study 1, or on some new
"inconspicuous" necessities such as basic toiletries and household
cleaning products. Finally, subjects indicated how much time they
would want to spend on the same conspicuous volunteering from study 1,
or on some inconspicuous but socially helpful activities such as
picking up trash alone in a park or taking shorter showers to conserve
water.
The results here were equally clear: men in the mating condition,
compared with the non-mating condition, said they would spend more
money on the conspicuous luxuries, and that they would actually spend
less on the inconspicuous necessities; there was no effect on female
consumption decisions. In contrast, women in the mating condition,
compared with those in the non-mating condition, said they would spend
more time on conspicuous pro-social volunteering, but no more time on
the inconspicuous pro-social activities. Again, there was no effect on
male volunteering. So, thinking about mating does not simply increase
overall consumer spending or pro-social volunteering; it only
increases conspicuous consumption or conspicuous charity - the
behaviours that work best as public, costly displays.
It was a bit surprising that in both studies, the mating-primed men
did not act more conspicuously benevolent, and the mating-primed women
did not spend more on conspicuous consumption. Maybe mating-primed men
only favour conspicuously heroic forms of benevolence, such as saving
strangers from drowning, and mating-primed women only favour
conspicuously generous forms of spending, such as bidding high at
charity auctions. So, in study 3, another set of students followed the
same routine as in study 2, except that they could choose to spend
money on the original forms of conspicuous consumption or on more
generous forms such as donating to natural disaster victims at an on-
campus booth and bidding high at a public auction to raise money for
sick children. Also, they could choose to spend time and energy on the
original forms of conspicuous charity or on more heroic activities,
such as saving someone from a burning building or distracting a
grizzly bear from attacking a stranger.
He's my hero
As predicted, mating-primed women compared with control-condition
women said they would spend more on generosity-signalling conspicuous
spending; mating-primed men did the same. Also, mating-primed men
compared with control-condition men said they would do more heroic
helping, but not more non-heroic helping. There was no effect of
mating condition on female heroic helping. Moreover, men who were most
interested in promiscuous, short-term sexual liaisons showed the
largest increase after the mating priming in both generosity-
signalling conspicuous spending and in heroic benevolence. This is
strong evidence that men use these behaviours as costly mating
signals.
If thinking about mating can increase men's heroic benevolence,
perhaps other kinds of male benevolence might be boosted by mating
motives - not just heroic acts, but charitable activities that also
allow men to display their dominance or leadership.
In study 4, a final set of students indicated how willing they would
be to do helpful things that were either low-status (the original
activities from study 1), or socially prestigious (volunteering with
Hollywood celebrities in the Make a Wish Foundation for terminally ill
children, or coordinating meetings between charities and White House
officials), or socially dominant (giving a speech for a good cause to
a hostile crowd, or leading a risky public protest). Both sexes showed
a marginally higher interest in socially prestigious pro-social
behaviours when they were mating-primed. However, only the mating-
primed men showed a higher interest in the socially dominant pro-
social behaviours, and this effect was carried mostly by highly
promiscuous men.
Inspired by this last finding, Jill Sundie from the University of
Houston, Texas, Griskevicius and their colleagues conducted four
further studies. They measured interest in short-term mating using a
scale called the "sociosexuality inventory" (New Scientist, 29
November 2008, p 32).
Study 1 showed that high-promiscuity men were more willing to borrow
fashionable clothes from a friend to impress a potential mate rather
than a new boss, whereas low-promiscuity men would rather impress the
boss. Women showed no difference.
Showy lotharios
Study 2 showed that high-promiscuity men who looked at photos of eight
attractive women, compared with those who looked at photos of eight
attractive buildings, said they would spend more money on items such
as designer sunglasses or an elaborate car stereo rather than
inconspicuous products such as low-cost jeans or a toaster.
Study 3 showed this is only the case when the potential mating
situation is a short-term hook-up rather than a long-term
relationship. There was no shift for mating-primed low-promiscuity men
or for women in either study.
Study 4 showed that women rated a man driving a Porsche Boxster as
more attractive for a short-term sexual relationship than a man
driving a Honda Civic. But the Porsche did not make the man more
attractive as a possible marriage partner. Men rating women were
uninfluenced by the type of car she drove. This last study is
especially intriguing since it suggests that women are attracted to
conspicuously consuming men for their good genes (which can be
obtained from a single copulation) rather than their good resources.
Women rated a man driving a Porsche Boxster as more attractive for a
short-term sexual relationship
A study by the evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and the late
Margo Wilson from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada,
confirmed that mating priming influences economic behaviour more
strongly among males than females. They were interested in people's
"discount rates", which determine how patient people are when given a
choice between a certain number of dollars tomorrow, or a larger
number of dollars a larger number of days into the future. First they
measured the discount rate for about 200 subjects. Then they asked
people to look at photographs of potential mates or cars that were
previously rated as highly attractive or unattractive. Finally, they
remeasured each person's discount rate to see if it had changed after
looking at the photographs.
They found that men who looked at the photographs of highly attractive
women (from Hotornot.com) switched to a much higher discount rate -
they became much less patient about money. Looking at cars had no
effect on men's discount rates, and looking at men had no effect on
women's discount rates. (However, women looking at highly attractive
cars actually developed a lower discount rate - a more economically
rational attitude better suited to saving up the money for buying a
car.) In short, men who saw attractive women became much more
motivated to get whatever money they could in the short term,
presumably so they could spend it on conspicuous consumption to
attract mates.
These nine studies nicely support the idea that much of human economic
behaviour is engendered by motives of costly signalling to display our
personal qualities to potential mates and other social partners. These
motives are finely tuned and very specific. They show systematic sex
differences, and are influenced by apparent mating opportunities. They
reveal a human display psychology with intricate design features
shaped over millennia of evolution, to attract mates and friends
through certain kinds of costly, risky behaviours that reliably signal
certain desirable traits.
zenworm
> Nice article about altruism and greed!
>
> <<The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they
> would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition - for
> example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving that
> money. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they
> would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating
> condition. There was no mating effect on women's consumption
> decisions, nor any mating effect on men's volunteering. This study
> confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous
> charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating
> opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating
> display.>>
>
outstanding!
^worm
Wilson
"zenworm" <zens...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:88166990-181c-4e24...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> On Jan 2, 6:40 pm, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> Nice article about altruism and greed!
>>
>> <<The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they
>> would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition -
>> for
>> example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving
>> that
>> money. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they
>> would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating
>> condition. There was no mating effect on women's consumption
>> decisions, nor any mating effect on men's volunteering. This study
>> confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous
>> charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating
>> opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating
>> display.>>
>>
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427392.700-sex-and-shopping--...
>>
>> 01 January 2010 by Geoffrey Miller
>> Extracted from Spent: Sex, evolution and the secrets of consumerism
>> by
Yeah! It means if I want to get laid, I should spend some time
volunteering!
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Charles E Hardwidge
news:TuOdnfnK_4DDdaLW...@supernews.com...
>
> Yeah! It means if I want to get laid, I should spend some time
> volunteering!
Pottery classes are the old standby. It filters out the riff-raff and the
available women are gagging for a husband.
Don't bother with yoga unless you're there for the yoga. Most of the women
are on some self-affirmation feel good trip.
I've always found just turning up and ignoring women has me wind up with the
hottest girl in the room crowding me into a corner.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
zenworm
> "zenworm" <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:88166990-181c-4e24...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Jan 2, 6:40 pm, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >> Nice article about altruism and greed!
>
> >> <<The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they
> >> would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition -
> >> for
> >> example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving
> >> that
> >> money. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they
> >> would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating
> >> condition. There was no mating effect on women's consumption
> >> decisions, nor any mating effect on men's volunteering. This study
> >> confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous
> >> charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating
> >> opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating
> >> display.>>
>
> >>http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427392.700-sex-and-shopping--...
>
> >> 01 January 2010 by Geoffrey Miller
> >> Extracted from Spent: Sex, evolution and the secrets of consumerism
> >> by
and rent a porsche ;D
^worm
DharmaTroll
wrote:
You're probably right about the pottery versus yoga, as narcissistic,
superstitious, woo-woo chicks I know all seem to take yoga these days.
And I took a pottery class last year and the class had mostly women
(not to mention ones who like doing things with their hands and
getting dirty) and just one other guy besides me. I really enjoyed the
class and even made myself an awesome beer-mug as well as some nice-
looking bowls and plates. I'm going to sign up for another pottery
class sometime this year.
I would think that volunteering for groups that save animals might be
the best to find cute, cuddly, friendly girls (as such types are the
ones who like cute, cuddly, friendly puppies and kittens), whereas
environmental activists are often angry and political, instead of
compassionate and cuddly.
As for getting the girls by ignoring them, you'll love this pie-chart:
http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=42952
Though you must be better looking than I: for when I go to parties and
ignore the hot women (I've tried this strategy, as it's been suggested
to me before -- see link to pie-chart above), I end up talking to the
other geek guys about Star Trek or Dungeons'n'Dragons or dark matter
all evening. Oh well.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
Hah! "Porsche. It's a little too small to get laid IN it, but you get
laid the minute you get out of it!" From the film starring Dudley
Moore: "Crazy People".
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
news:fde528df-1b18-4826...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
> You're probably right about the pottery versus yoga, as narcissistic,
> superstitious, woo-woo chicks I know all seem to take yoga these days.
> And I took a pottery class last year and the class had mostly women
> (not to mention ones who like doing things with their hands and
> getting dirty) and just one other guy besides me. I really enjoyed the
> class and even made myself an awesome beer-mug as well as some nice-
> looking bowls and plates. I'm going to sign up for another pottery
> class sometime this year.
>
> I would think that volunteering for groups that save animals might be
> the best to find cute, cuddly, friendly girls (as such types are the
> ones who like cute, cuddly, friendly puppies and kittens), whereas
> environmental activists are often angry and political, instead of
> compassionate and cuddly.
>
> As for getting the girls by ignoring them, you'll love this pie-chart:
> http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=42952
>
> Though you must be better looking than I: for when I go to parties and
> ignore the hot women (I've tried this strategy, as it's been suggested
> to me before -- see link to pie-chart above), I end up talking to the
> other geek guys about Star Trek or Dungeons'n'Dragons or dark matter
> all evening. Oh well.
The general shape of your comment is about right. In politics you might want
to compare extremes like, say, Claire Short versus Nadine Dorris. They're
both ghastly caricatures up their own asses and best avoided.
I wouldn't call myself better looking but I do listen and can discuss a wide
variety of subjects. I've also got a Reality Distortion Field. The last time
I got into a conversation with a girl she was hypnotised and almost taking
her clothes off in public, and I hadn't even known her for 10 minutes. I
also get captivated looks and cute glances. I reckon, it must be the edge
and overall presentation. Funny thing is, I've found if I take a more
leading position the bubble bursts and they can't run away fast enough.
I was at some neighbours the other year to check out so Nicheren Daishonin
meeting she was holding. Okay, so there was all the bollocks and getting
pressed into the corner by some geeks but when that shit cleared out of the
way the women said I had some interesting stuff to say on strategy and were
getting friendly. I treated them like they were normal people and wasn't
hassling them. A couple of days later I bumped into the red head who I
fancied and she said hello but that's another story.
It sure ain't the power, status, or wealth....
It's early, early days but I'm trying to work something out with a former
big media guy who balances out my skills like Jobs and Wozniak. Can't talk
about it at the moment and I'll be surprised if anything happens. Oh, and if
you could churn out a regular article on voodoo thinking there may be a role
for you if you're interested. There's no money on the table for now and it's
mostly for fun but I'd hope to put a royalty based commercialisation licence
in place so people don't feel exploited.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Charles E Hardwidge
> Hah! "Porsche. It's a little too small to get laid IN it, but you get
> laid the minute you get out of it!" From the film starring Dudley
> Moore: "Crazy People".
I'd rather have a Bentley. It goes like the clappers, if you get caught in a
crash it can dent a truck, and there's plenty of space in the back.
Failing that, a Maserati.
Buggerit. New shoes. :-/
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Lee Rudolph
>On Jan 2, 6:40=A0pm, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
[deleted]
>
>outstanding!
Outstanding example of the kind of crap that some "evolutionary
psychologists" (and, latterly, "economic psychologists" of a sort
that would have Tversky spinning in his grave) tend to publish--
collect a group of American college students, have them play
let's-pretend, and run the numbers; then fit it to a just-so
story about conditions in the Era of Evolutionary Adaptation.
Nice "scientific methodology" they got there, Bucko.
Lee Rudolph
Lee Rudolph
Not into a kiln?
Lee Rudolph
Kitty P
"Lee Rudolph" <lrud...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:hhp1vu$a57$1...@reader1.panix.com...
shhhh... it makes them feel better.
DharmaTroll
Rather cynical, but a reasonable complaint. Thank God you didn't use
the term "Scientism", at least!
Actually, you can learn a hell of a lot from having college students
play "let's pretend". I think Stanley Milgram's experiments were
insightful and fantastic, btw.
In this case, this set of nine distinct studies make a lot of
interesting suggestions about how most people in our culture think and
behave. And they make provide clues to the way we mysteriously evolved
the way we did to get to where we are now. Certainly the 'soft'
sciences are more fuzzy and speculative, and this isn't like a physics
experiment, but there is a lot to be learned from them.
I read a book recently on this very same kind of topic that a Buddhist
teacher recommended to me, "Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's
Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution", by Leonard Shlain. It was all
speculative like this, and didn't even have any experiments with
college Psyc 101 students to back it up! But it was fascinating, and
Schlain's theory's are interesting, and I'd love to find out if any
corroborating evidence for it shows up. I like this stuff because it
makes you think, and you can relate it to your own social life. I
wouldn't 'believe' it or anything, but take it as an explanation that
makes sense and which merits more attention.
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
Here is some food for thought my research turned up.
http://www.alchemysite.com/blog/brain_brand_01.html
brain function and marketing
Fouroboros | Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand. Part I
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canadian Headhunter and I have been to-ing and fro-ing about what
makes people tick, relative to brand and leadership and whatnot. Rob,
at BusinessPundit, also seems to have some interest in the subject.
It's a big club but, seemingly, short on firm theory to toss around.
So, with a prayer to St Christopher or whomever watches over IP, some
of our ideas, firm or otherwise:
Number one: Life is much simpler than you suspect. Number two: People
don't know what they think. Number three: Emotion trumps logic. Number
four: Brand is ubiquitous
People do things that often have nothing to do with common sense, and
everything to do with how they regard themselves and how they think
others will see them. Opposite of this is that they perceive others
not how they are, but how they want them to be--for good, or for ill.
Confused? Ever heard the phrase "love is blind"? There you go.
Similarly, "love at first sight" is not a myth, it is a collection of
images and metaphors that click, gestalt-like, all at once. Fact is
not invited, except as the cover for instinctive decisions made
following intrinsic rules of fundamental human desires.
French Mathematician, Blaise Pascal said "the heart has reasons that
reason doesn't know." Some credit Emerson for this instead, but
whoever said it, the modern translation would be: Perception is
reality. And reality reveals itself in subconsious imagery called
Archetypes. These apply to places, products and companies, as well as
people. They most definitely apply to America. In its positive form,
the results of encountering an Archetype in action are two-fold:
1. "Ooohhh."
2. "I want some!"
<graphic snipped>
This way of arranging our world view is inviolable. You fight
archetype and "the frame" at your peril. (You've heard of "framing the
issue"? The idea of contextual Framing comes from a 50s anthroplogist
named Gregory Bateson. Around here we call the distillation and
mobilization of this stuff "Managing the frame©")
Is it irrational? Of course it is. And it causes people to indeed be
economic irrationalists in realizing this Statue sense. Spreadsheets
and spec charts do not move them. The things we often trumpet about
Standard Feature Advantage Benefit progressions are moot--because they
are invariably incomplete. They do not go deep enough.
For instance, people buy SUVs "because they're safer", even though
they've seen DatelineNBC and other shows explain things like higher
rollover risk. Yet, against every provable, spreadsheetable, surveyed-
to-death fact to the contrary, they buy them because they still "Feel"
safer. ("Bigness" matters and not because "bigger is better." Think
harder and you'll get to them.)
Likewise, asking people in standard terms what they want out of work,
or from a particular product--what we call the old conversation--often
gets you useless information: They will say what they think sounds
intelligent or what they think they are supposed to say, in order to
be, you guessed it, more highly regarded. Yes, more highly regarded by
people they'll never see again. So they lie. And we ask more wrong
questions in polls. And our focus group participants become amateur
venture capitalists or marketing experts. In other words, they gild
the lilly some more. Then we all run off and execute initiatives that
are doomed from inception. And the cycle continues. We all do it.
Boardroom to loading dock. Gen-X to Gen WWII. Bad mojo. Expensive
mojo. Career-threatening mojo.
What's good mojo? Effective companies share DNA and brain patterns
with their customers. Great companies and their brands are leaders of
communities--internal and external. They mirror and amplify the
ambitions of their respective publics. They know how to discover and
employ this DNA and it's elements. Primary to all this is to
understand that leaders are:
A. Purveyors of hope and answers to questions people are often
unequipped to ask.
B. Guides to a future people didn't know they had. Or, had given up
on.
So, actions--purchasing or not, working hard or not, sacrificing or
not--are exemplars of deeper issues in play. These issues, shared
understandings really, compose the language of Vision, and of Vision
executed: Brand. It begins with this:
<graphic snipped>
In their work with epileptics in the 1950s, neuroscientists like Paul
MacLean revealed a lot about brain function, and the relationship
between the cortex (left and right hemispheres), and what MacLean and
others call the R-complex (our limbic, mamalian and reptilian brain.)
In the graphic, you'll notice the usual left brain/right brain
breakdown, with those two hemispheres stacked on top of the older,
evolutionary-wise, R-complex. Our evolved left brain is younger and
therefore least "senior" if you will. It is also more loosely
connected to the somewhat older "right" brain, and lastly, to the
oldest mammalian and reptilian brains. Why does this matter? The left
brain needs the permission of the older brains to move forward into
action. That is the biological connection. The brain is a feedback
system of permissions, wth the oldest, seemingly most irrational
element, the R-Complex, holding the keys to action.
Notice words like ritualistic, paranoid and compulsive. Sounds tribal,
prehistoric even. Hardly sounds like someone we'd invite to dinner
does it? Never fear, they're still vital. And when filtered up through
the brain they're polite company. Polite, but powerful. And if you
ignore them, probably recalcitrant or obstructionist. Or worse,
destructive. Not a part of the brain you want working against you. Bad
enemies the R-complex--it carries us into things like, oh, I dunno,
Clashes of Civilizations or Jihad.
Our left brain is sequential, process oriented. It likes resumes,
track records and consistency. It's not too big on surprises. It
values "Doing" things. Contrary to what many think, the left-brain
factors heavily in creative thinking and artistic technique, heavy on
the technique or mastery aspect of it. Left is cool, calm and
calculating. It loves words and numbers. It can handle abstracts like
quantum physics. It doesn't need visuals to visualize. But as we said,
it's the youngest, and the brain is like a Trade Union or the average
family: Seniority matters.
Next comes the right brain. Home to images and feeling, music and
metaphor, the right brain is simultaneous orgestalt, German for "all
at once". Unlike the sequential left brain which likes to packet
things to be effective, the right brain assimilates instantly many
disparate elements and says "Ahh, Beethovens 5th" or "Oooh, a farm."
It's why hearing a song from say, "The Breakfast Club" throws you back
to high school or wherever you were at the time, bringing with it all
the attendant feelings that fit. And this is where the right brain
does its best work.
Metaphor combines image cognition (any sensory image) and feeling
states. Perhaps it's reduntant, but it bears explaining: Derived from
Greek, meta means "over and above", pherein the root, means "to bear
across". The work of Carl Jung and philosophers like Immanuel Kant
rely heavily on metaphor and its alphabet, Archetype. Metaphor is the
home of dreams and myths, legends and cultural icons. It too is
rigidly consistent in this part--it's why Homer's Oddysey gets
rewritten in the 1950s by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa as The Lost
Kingdom and then, rewritten again in 1977 by American director George
Lucas, this time as Star Wars. Same story, same metaphors, same
archetypes. Only 2000 years between them. Smells like a pattern, eh?
As such, the right brain is half-home to knowable nareatives of
motivation. Speaking of smell, something as simple as the aroma of
cofffee brewing in the morning is richly laden with metaphorical
meaning to a 45 year-old. They may not know it, but the smell means
comfort, security and stability. It means Home, in the best sense, as
they remember it as a child. Folgers figured this out through
Archetype study with French Cultural Psychologist named Clotaire
Rapaille. They stopped talking freshness and began promoting aroma.
And the numbers spiked.
Finally, the R-complex, a clustering of our earliest Reptillian and
Mamallian brains. It is the most directly connected to the right
brain, it's closest evolutionary sibling, age-wise. As was noted, the
R-complex is home to limbic responses such a self-preservation and
reproductive urges. The R-complex is the thing that jolts our sytems
into motion in times of arousal--threatening or pleasurable.
(Philosophical Utilitarians will recognize the "Pleasure/Pain" dyad.)
R-Cx is the proverbial on/off switch, and it doesn't debate itself or
others. But it is an often myopic boss. Our cortex (Left/Right brains)
keeps it in check with that one thing unique to Humans, our evolved
sense of free-will, borne of reasoning. Where other animals will
attack to protect, kill readily to eat, mate or when being encroached
upon, our cortex brakes this impulse--sometimes--with the concepts of
caution or mercy. The mamallian self-protective impulse of the R-
complex has more luck at this than the cortex also. They are immediate
neigbors and speak the same language, if you will. Where a reptile
will attack a much larger animal while competing for a mate, the
mammalian overide warns against it, essentially saying: you're no good
to anybody wounded or dead. Live to fight another day. Notice there's
no mention of moral right or wrong in that statement. It is purely
enlightened self-interest: I won't kill you because I can't procreate
or otherwise enjoy life locked up or dead, not because God told me not
to.
As we said, R-Complex is self-interested and bores easily. It also has
a checkbook or energy to share. Boundless energy. But only if you can
tap into the patterns that unleash or engage the right-brain/R-complex
chain. Do that, and you get "truth" or "authenticity". At least, you
get them as understood by the brain's owner, which is what matters if
you're a marketer or a leader or provider of anything that needs buy-
in from others. Which brings us to the brain progression we call FAB3.
The process looks like this:
<graphic snipped>
Good time for a break, I've got work to do. Uhh, Chat amongst your
hemispheres. More later in Part II.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
^worm
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
" I do listen ... Funny thing is, I've found if I take a more leading
position the bubble bursts and they can't run away fast enough."
That makes a lot of sense. Listening skills are important, and men are
taught wrongly to show off what they know, and end up boring women,
but listening is a much more valuable practice, and if you know
something about a lot of subjects, then you can stay in the
conversation when you are listening. Unfortunately, I haven't put this
skill into practice often enough.
As for: "Oh, and if you could churn out a regular article on voodoo
thinking there may be a role for you if you're interested" -- several
people have suggested that to me! I'm a fan of skeptical bloggers, as
well as the big-shots like James Randi and Richard Dawkins, and most
of what I say is repeating their stuff I read. I like to have fun
debunking nutters on the list here, but conjuring up my own critiques,
and not just posting others' work might be rather hard, whereas
posting here I do off the top of my head for fun, though I'm serious
about the topics.
I do envy my hero at Scientific American, Michael Shermer, who
faithfully debunks woo-woo in his column, which is one of my many must-
reads. In fact, recently, it's been a little like this list on a
higher level. Like the battles between DharmaTroll and Keynes, Shermer
had a debate with a real-world nutter, Deepak Chopra recently, on
"Larry King Live" http://podcasts.cnn.net/cnn/big/podcasts/lkl/video/2009/12/22/lkl.life.death.cnn.m4v
and after Shermer mopped the floor with Chopra, (in my arrogant
opinion), Chopra came back with a Keynes-like post on the popular
"Huffington Post" web site. I do fantasize battling the big-shot
nutters and snake-oil peddlers like Deepok Chopra, as does Shermer. In
fact, I'd love the attention if big-shot hucksters like Chopra were
accusing me of "scientism" instead of the small-fry nutters around
these parts. Below is Chopra's lame response to Shermer, which reads
like one of Keynes' posts bashing me. I hope Shermer take him up
Chopra on his debate offer and debunks his New-Age Nonsense. Chopra
doesn't accuse Shermer of "Scientism" but rather of "Bad Science",
which is pretty much the same insult, and then he uses the same attack
on Shermer's Christian past that the Tang-banger uses on me. And note
the title of the article!! Whew Who!
--DharmaTroll
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/woo-woo-is-a-step-ahead-o_b_404311.html
<<Woo Woo Is a Step Ahead of (Bad) Science
Posted: December 27, 2009 12:58 PM
by Deepak Chopra
It used to annoy me to be called the king of woo woo. For those who
aren't familiar with the term, "woo woo" is a derogatory reference to
almost any form of unconventional thinking, aimed by professional
skeptics who are self-appointed vigilantes dedicated to the
suppression of curiosity. I get labeled much worse things as regularly
as clockwork whenever I disagree with big fry like Richard Dawkins or
smaller fry like Michael Shermer, the Scientific American columnist
and editor of Skeptic magazine. The latest barrage of name-calling
occurred after the two of us had a spirited exchange on Larry King
Live last week. Maybe you saw it. I was the one rolling my eyes as
Shermer spoke. Sorry about that, a spontaneous reflex of the
involuntary nervous system.
Afterwards, however, I had an unpredictable reaction. I realized that
I would much rather expound woo woo than the kind of bad science
Shermer stands behind. He has made skepticism his personal brand, more
or less, sitting by the side of the road to denigrate "those people
who believe in spirituality, ghosts, and so on," as he says on a
YouTube video. No matter that this broad brush would tar not just the
Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, and countless
scientists who happen to recognize a reality that transcends space and
time. All are deemed irrational by the skeptical crowd. You would
think that skeptics as a class have made significant contributions to
science or the quality of life in their own right. Uh oh. No, they
haven't. Their principal job is to reinforce the great ideas of
yesterday while suppressing the great ideas of tomorrow.
Let me clear the slate with Shermer and forget the several times he
has wiggled out of a public debate he was supposedly eager to have
with me. I will ignore his recent blog in which his rebuttal of my
position was relegated to a long letter from someone who obviously
didn't possess English as a first language (would Shermer like to
write a defense of his position in Hindi? It would read just as
ludicrously if Hindi isn't his first language).
With the slate clear, I'd like to see if Shermer will accept the offer
to debate me at length on such profound questions as the following:
• Is there evidence for creativity and intelligence in the cosmos?
• What is consciousness?
• Do we have a core identity beyond our biology, mind, and ego?
• Is there life after death? Does this identity outlive the molecules
through which it expresses itself?
The rules will be simple. He can argue from any basis he chooses, and
I will confine myself entirely to science. For we have reached the
state where Shermer's tired, out-of-date, utterly mediocre science is
far in arrears of the best, most open scientific thinkers -- actually,
we reached that point 60 years ago when eminent physicists like
Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger
applied quantum theory to deep spiritual questions. The arrogance of
skeptics is both high-handed and rusty. It is high-handed because they
lump brilliant speculative thinkers into one black box known as woo
woo. It is rusty because Shermer doesn't even bother to keep up with
the latest findings in neuroscience, medicine, genetics, physics, and
evolutionary biology. All of these fields have opened fascinating new
ground for speculation and imagination. But the king of pooh-pooh is
too busy chasing down imaginary woo woo.
Skeptics feel that they have won the high ground in matters concerning
consciousness, mind, the origins of life, evolutionary theory, and
brain science. This is far from the case. What they cling to is 19th
Century materialism, packaged with a screeching hysteria about God and
religion that is so passé it has become quaint. To suggest that
Darwinian theory is incomplete and full of unproven hypotheses causes
Shermer, who takes Darwin as purely as a fundamentalist takes
scripture, to see God everywhere in the enemy camp.
How silly. Shermer is a former Christian fundamentalist who is now a
fundamentalist about materialism; fundamentalists must have an
absolute to believe in. Thus he forces himself into a corner,
declaring that all spirituality is bogus, that the sense of self is an
illusion, that the soul is ipso facto a fraud, that mind has no
existence except in the brain, that intelligence emerged only when
evolution, guided by random mutations, developed the cerebral cortex,
that nothing invisible can be real compared to solid objects, and that
any thought which ventures beyond the five senses for evidence must be
dismissed without question.
I won't go into detail about the absurdity of such rigid thinking.
However, the impulse behind dogmatic materialism seems intended to
flatten one's opponents so thoroughly that through scorn and arrogance
they must admit defeat, conceding that science is the complete
refutation of all preceding religion, spirituality, psychology, myth,
and philosophy -- in other words, any mode of gaining knowledge that
arch materialism doesn't countenance.
I've baited this post with a few barbs to see if Shermer can be goaded
into an actual public debate. I have avoided his and his followers'
underhanded methods, whereby an opponent is attacked ad hominem as an
idiot, moron, and other choice epithets that in his world are the
mainstays of rational argument. And the point of such a debate? To
further public knowledge about the actual frontiers of science, which
has always depended on wonder, awe, imagination, and speculation.
Petty science of the Shermer brand scorns such things, but the
greatest discoveries have been anchored on them.
If you are tempted to think that I have taken the weaker side and that
materialism long ago won this debate, let me end with a piece of
utterly nonsensical woo woo:
"Nobody understands how decisions are made or how imagination is set
free. What consciousness consists of, or how it should be defined, is
equally puzzling. Despite the marvelous success of neuroscience in the
past century, we seem as far from understanding cognitive processes as
we were a century ago."
That isn't a quote from "one of those people who believe in
spirituality, ghosts, and so on." It's from Sir John Maddox, former
editor-in-chief of the renowned scientific journal Nature, writing in
1999. I can't wait for Shermer to call him an idiot and a moron. Don't
worry, he won't. He'll find an artful way of slithering to higher
ground where all the other skeptics are huddled.
P. S. In light of a few of the comments I would like to clarify
something. I hold great value and trust in the scientific method when
practiced honestly. Also, I have nothing against healthy skepticism
which retains an open mind to future possibilities in science. What I
am really addressing here is the brand of professional skepticism that
Shermer stands for that borders on cynicism and which leads to a rigid
attachment to materialist science. It is the cynicism and prejudice
that refuses to explore the new frontiers of neuroscience, genomics,
epigenetics, information theory and the understanding of consciousness
that I am speaking to.>>
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Jan 2, 9:50 pm, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
> " I do listen ... Funny thing is, I've found if I take a more leading
> position the bubble bursts and they can't run away fast enough."
>
> That makes a lot of sense. Listening skills are important, and men are
> taught wrongly to show off what they know, and end up boring women,
> but listening is a much more valuable practice, and if you know
> something about a lot of subjects, then you can stay in the
> conversation when you are listening. Unfortunately, I haven't put this
> skill into practice often enough.
>
> As for: "Oh, and if you could churn out a regular article on voodoo
> thinking there may be a role for you if you're interested" -- several
> people have suggested that to me! I'm a fan of skeptical bloggers, as
> well as the big-shots like James Randi and Richard Dawkins, and most
> of what I say is repeating their stuff I read. I like to have fun
> debunking nutters on the list here, but conjuring up my own critiques,
> and not just posting others' work might be rather hard, whereas
> posting here I do off the top of my head for fun, though I'm serious
> about the topics.
> http://podcasts.cnn.net/cnn/big/podcasts/lkl/video/2009/12/22/lkl.life.death.cnn.m4v
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/woo-woo-is-a-step-ahead-o_b_404311.html
I sometimes have issues with blowing myself away with golden opportunities
I've just landed and getting twitchy. That's mostly an issue of self belief
and some bad accidents. Something to get over.
Some bigshot said I wrote well and ought to consider doing articles but I
haven't made anything of that. I hear what you're saying about off the cuff
stuff which is why I've stuck to comments.
I can't comment on the project but we're aiming for a gap in the market that
has potential. It may be nothing or could be a contender. I've been ripped
off plenty in the past. Maybe, I should just pinch your stuff. ;-)
I've put the audio article on as background and skimmed the Chopra thing and
my gut reaction is to plonk them all in the same camp as economics
bullshitters and political vested interests.
I've got some work to do and there are no short-cuts but I'm also looking at
pinging a few novel and weird potential contributors. If you know any burned
out Hell's Angels or transvestite prostitutes let me know.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Charles E Hardwidge
> Rather cynical, but a reasonable complaint. Thank God you didn't use
> the term "Scientism", at least!
It sounds awfully like calling anyone who gives a shit a socialist, or
anyone with a brain a fascist. I'm not a socialist or a fascist but nutters
at the extremes like to brand people. Yeah, whatever.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
> Here is some food for thought my research turned up.
This is a fantastic article. Lots of interesting ideas. And I'm a big
fan of Gregory Bateson, so I always am going to like anything that
connects to his ideas. Most of the stuff in the article I've heard in
some form before, about our reptilian brain determining so much of our
intuitions and so forth. I like the part:
<< [S]omething as simple as the aroma of coffee brewing in the morning
is richly laden with metaphorical meaning to a 45 year-old. They may
not know it, but the smell means comfort, security and stability. It
means Home, in the best sense, as they remember it as a child. Folgers
figured this out through. Archetype study with French Cultural
Psychologist named Clotaire Rapaille. They stopped talking freshness
and began promoting aroma. And the numbers spiked.>>
Great example. Exactly what I've been trying to tell Tang about the
connotations of the word "God".
--DharmaTroll
> As such, the right brain is half-home to knowable narratives of
> motivation. Speaking of smell, something as simple as the aroma of
> coffee brewing in the morning is richly laden with metaphorical
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Jan 2, 11:03 pm, zenworm <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Here is some food for thought my research turned up.
>
> This is a fantastic article. Lots of interesting ideas. And I'm a big
> fan of Gregory Bateson, so I always am going to like anything that
> connects to his ideas. Most of the stuff in the article I've heard in
> some form before, about our reptilian brain determining so much of our
> intuitions and so forth. I like the part:
It's fundamental AI theory. Nothing spectacular. The real issue is middle
brain stuff. Any asshole can have a bright idea but changing attitude is the
really, really hard thing. Same with any system.
There's a direct connection with chix and the unannounced project I'm hoping
to get together. Where Tang and the peanut gallery fall down is their
reliance on idealisms and froth. Delivery and society matter.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
Yeah, that's it: the way President Obama was pummeled by his opponents
in the election, and still is, with the term "Socialist". Now that's a
stronger case, as it's an insult even though there are many folks who
call themselves "Socialist" in a positive way. Whereas there are no
scientists and critical thinkers who call themselves believers in
"Scientism", any more than there are any Buddhists who call themselves
the equally offensive term, "Hinayanists".
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
> On Jan 2, 11:03 pm, zenworm <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Here is some food for thought my research turned up.
>
> This is a fantastic article. Lots of interesting ideas. And I'm a big
> fan of Gregory Bateson, so I always am going to like anything that
> connects to his ideas. Most of the stuff in the article I've heard in
> some form before, about our reptilian brain determining so much of our
> intuitions and so forth. I like the part:
>
> << [S]omething as simple as the aroma of coffee brewing in the morning
> is richly laden with metaphorical meaning to a 45 year-old. They may
> not know it, but the smell means comfort, security and stability. It
> means Home, in the best sense, as they remember it as a child. Folgers
> figured this out through. Archetype study with French Cultural
> Psychologist named Clotaire Rapaille. They stopped talking freshness
> and began promoting aroma. And the numbers spiked.>>
>
> Great example. Exactly what I've been trying to tell Tang about the
> connotations of the word "God".
>
> --DharmaTroll
>
> >http://www.alchemysite.com/blog/brain_brand_01.html
>
Here is something interesting.
In The Book of Masters there is a chapter on
The Physiology of Enlightening Being wherein
it is described that in the unenlightened mind
the intuitive and the rational parts of the brain
fire very quickly and most of the time
asynchronously whereas in an enlightened
person the firing is slower (lasts longer) and is
much more often synchronous.
One of the keys to this is the reptilian
brain's permission which effectively increases
the bandwidth of connection
between the left and right hemispheres. That
permission is on an instinctual level tied in directly
with survival. One of the keys to overriding the
survival-safety permissions is heroism. When
Buddha taught the principles of bodhisattva he
introduced heroism into enlightenment practice
which helps the reptilian brain surrender survival
inhibitions and allow the increased bandwidth of
interaction between the left and right hemispheres.
When the firing between the intuitive brain and
the rational brain slow down and synchronize
(one of the benefits of meditation)
then intuition meets reason directly and
physiologically this is enlightenment.
On a small scale this is what we do when we think
about something. We hold the subject in the rational
mind long enough that the fairly random flash firing
of the two hemispheres happens to fire synchronously
allowing inspiration into rational mind on the subject
held in rational mind. Sometimes this occurrence is
called the muse.
interesting?
^worm
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Jan 2, 11:58 pm, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:91d4d2e3-1f4e-4791...@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > Rather cynical, but a reasonable complaint. Thank God you didn't use
>> > the term "Scientism", at least!
>>
>> It sounds awfully like calling anyone who gives a shit a socialist, or
>> anyone with a brain a fascist. I'm not a socialist or a fascist but
>> nutters at the extremes like to brand people. Yeah, whatever.
>
> in the election, and still is, with the term "Socialist". Now that's a
> stronger case, as it's an insult even though there are many folks who
> call themselves "Socialist" in a positive way. Whereas there are no
> scientists and critical thinkers who call themselves believers in
> "Scientism", any more than there are any Buddhists who call themselves
> the equally offensive term, "Hinayanists".
The Republican and Tory campaign is identical, and I've spotted huge
similarities between those and Microsoft's Windows 7 campaign. The
underlying common point isn't affiliation but mindset. This is the usual
policy and character game, or competitive game people play. It's got fuck
all to do with governance, business, or spirituality. It's just naked ego.
You're astute to pick out that people may or may not call themselves by a
label, or call or not call others by a label. But, one may define the "true
way" in positive terms and anyone lacking that label is obviously not
following the "true way", or vice versa. There's Thatcher's "not one of us"
or Labour's "not real Labour", fuzzy minded thinkers, and sell-outs. It's
all the same thing.
I'm acutely aware of this and been working on ironing out personal faults
and staying in the game. Again, the unannounced project is an exercise in
this like, say, Jobs and Wozniak. I hope I've got the maturity of
perspective to make things happen and not shit on anyone but there's always
the lurking temptation to be an evil, lazy, and greedy bastard. If I'm
lucky, the lifetime of fuckups behind me might turn into something useful.
Then again, it might not. Dunno. We'll see.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:b1e97248-e9c3-4add...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Jan 2, 11:03 pm, zenworm <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Here is some food for thought my research turned up.
>
> > This is a fantastic article. Lots of interesting ideas. And I'm a big
> > fan of Gregory Bateson, so I always am going to like anything that
> > connects to his ideas. Most of the stuff in the article I've heard in
> > some form before, about our reptilian brain determining so much of our
> > intuitions and so forth. I like the part:
>
> It's fundamental AI theory. Nothing spectacular. The real issue is middle
> brain stuff. Any asshole can have a bright idea but changing attitude is the
> really, really hard thing. Same with any system.
Well, that may be true, but the article is still interesting, and is
worth a read, though it is of course going to be boring to folks in
the field.
If the article expresses the basic tenets and ideas in its field, then
it still has "textbook" value. It's the kind of article that I might
share with friends.
> There's a direct connection with chix and the unannounced project I'm hoping
> to get together. Where Tang and the peanut gallery fall down is their
> reliance on idealisms and froth. Delivery and society matter.
>
> --
> Charles E Hardwidge
One step at a time!
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
OMFG!!! You @#%$*#% %$&#@%*!!!!!!!! I'm going to &%*$# you!! LOL.
Yeah. There's essays on craft mastery and interviewing which cover similar
stuff, and corporate values and experience. It's all part of the same thing.
I've read and yapped about this stuff enough which is another reason why I'm
shifting priorities more to doing stuff and getting around.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
The Book of Masters? The Disney Film????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTbFoiyaTaw
As for a physiology difference, you could check that out with brain
scans in theory, though you'd have to have some other way of
determining how 'enlightened' one is to make the test valid. I suppose
you could compare the brains of hardened criminals with those of monks
or something to get a rough idea of whether this idea holds water.
> One of the keys to this is the reptilian
> brain's permission which effectively increases
> the bandwidth of connection
> between the left and right hemispheres. That
> permission is on an instinctual level tied in directly
> with survival. One of the keys to overriding the
> survival-safety permissions is heroism.
In my case the key was going to college and being attentive and
curious. For example, I wasn't fond of black people as a kid because I
was born in a Southern racist small town, where the only black folks
were all poor, stupid, and mean, and so I developed a prejudice. But
after going to college and meeting black students as kind and
intelligent as myself, as well as cool black professors, I dropped
most of my conditioning. The only remnant of my conditioning is that
when I see a group of black males in baggy pants I immediately feel a
tinge of fear, though if they wear suits and ties or even nice
clothes, my reptilian brain apparently gives the rest of it permission
not to feel any fear. Though that fear might be statistically
justified. (And Tang, don't even think about calling me a racist for
the next five years -- I'm serious.)
> When
> Buddha taught the principles of bodhisattva he
> introduced heroism into enlightenment practice
> which helps the reptilian brain surrender survival
> inhibitions and allow the increased bandwidth of
> interaction between the left and right hemispheres.
That may be a stretch. What exactly are the principles of bodhisattva?
I'm suspicious in trying to map Buddhism onto studies of the brain,
unless it is very specific. Have you read the book, "Zen and the
Brain", btw?
> When the firing between the intuitive brain and
> the rational brain slow down and synchronize
> (one of the benefits of meditation)
> then intuition meets reason directly and
> physiologically this is enlightenment.
That sounds too cute and New-Age-ish. As I see enlightenment as the
non-arising of craving, aversion, and delusion, I would expect that
certain dysfunctional neural pathways and patterns would be replaced
by more optimally psychologically healthy pathways and patterns. This
"intuition meeting reason directly" sounds way too hokey to me. But if
there's evidence for it, then I'll be interested.
> On a small scale this is what we do when we think
> about something. We hold the subject in the rational
> mind long enough that the fairly random flash firing
> of the two hemispheres happens to fire synchronously
> allowing inspiration into rational mind on the subject
> held in rational mind. Sometimes this occurrence is
> called the muse.
>
> interesting?
>
> ^worm
That last part doesn't make sense to me at all. I think it may have to
do with how memory is stored. We rationally think in a focused, verbal
way. I think that has to trigger all sorts of connections that have
been made in the 'intuitive' part, which is more visual and
metaphorical and non-verbal, and then the rational mind finds
connections.
I'm thinking of how I learned how to play chess well. There are
programs that have databases of tons and tons of grandmaster games. I
can pick something, like bishop vs. knight endgames, or "rook
sacrifices on the open rook file against a castled king" and get
hundreds of games that had this theme. Then I can study a ton of them
in a row. After a while, my intuitions are tuned to get a 'feel' for
the position. So after studying rook sacrifices, for example, I was in
a game and looked at the position and rationally saw that I had an
open file and could sacrifice a rook for nothing (or for a pawn) with
no obvious continuation, which usually will be suicidal if I did so.
But then my intuitions tuned in and it felt "right" as the pattern of
the game resembled so many of those positions I'd studied where a
similar sacrifice worked. Then I used the rational part of my mind and
studied the position for a long time, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and sure
enough, I found a continuation that worked after a few moves, even
though I couldn't see every possibility all the way to checkmate. So I
sacked the rook, and after four or five moves later, I saw that I had
a forced checkmate in another four or five moves, and I won the game.
I don't think it was a matter of synchronous firing, more that I
passed the info from intuitive pattern-recognizing holistic part of
the brain to the rational part which then did its job and cranked out
a linear tree analysis and confirmed the result, and then with both
sides agreeing, I played the risky move and won the game. My opponent
was impressed, btw, and said, "wow, cool sack -- I didn't see it
coming at all but pretty much figured I was toast once you'd played
it."
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> In my case the key was going to college and being attentive and
> curious. For example, I wasn't fond of black people as a kid because I
> was born in a Southern racist small town, where the only black folks
> were all poor, stupid, and mean, and so I developed a prejudice. But
> after going to college and meeting black students as kind and
> intelligent as myself, as well as cool black professors, I dropped
> most of my conditioning. The only remnant of my conditioning is that
> when I see a group of black males in baggy pants I immediately feel a
> tinge of fear, though if they wear suits and ties or even nice
> clothes, my reptilian brain apparently gives the rest of it permission
> not to feel any fear. Though that fear might be statistically
> justified. (And Tang, don't even think about calling me a racist for
> the next five years -- I'm serious.)
I can identify with that though one shouldn't forget blacks are equally
capable of racism and the affirmative action brigade can also suffer from
inverse racism. This, like feminist and anti-nuclear bullshit is a truth
that dare not speak its name for all the usual power, status, and wealth
reasons. Things change. People die. A new old tomorrow arrives.
I've had this theory for a new years that change is a bandwidth issue.
People don't change much they just shuffle their prejudices around like a
FIFO queue. The average asshole yesterday is much the same as the average
asshole tomorrow. I suppose, cultural, biological, and market evolution are
the same in that respect. Growth is slow.
I also don't think there's much difference between the top and the bottom.
They're mirror opposites of each other. One is physical and the other will
mug you with their chequebook but it works out the same. Compare, say,
princes trapped in their gilded cage and niggah's in da hood. They're just a
reflection of each other.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:6dab4cfe-73bb-4ed0...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > In my case the key was going to college and being attentive and
> > curious. For example, I wasn't fond of black people as a kid because I
> > was born in a Southern racist small town, where the only black folks
> > were all poor, stupid, and mean, and so I developed a prejudice. But
> > after going to college and meeting black students as kind and
> > intelligent as myself, as well as cool black professors, I dropped
> > most of my conditioning. The only remnant of my conditioning is that
> > when I see a group of black males in baggy pants I immediately feel a
> > tinge of fear, though if they wear suits and ties or even nice
> > clothes, my reptilian brain apparently gives the rest of it permission
> > not to feel any fear. Though that fear might be statistically
> > justified. (And Tang, don't even think about calling me a racist for
> > the next five years -- I'm serious.)
>
> I can identify with that though one shouldn't forget blacks are equally
> capable of racism and the affirmative action brigade can also suffer from
> inverse racism. This, like feminist and anti-nuclear bullshit is a truth
> that dare not speak its name for all the usual power, status, and wealth
> reasons. Things change. People die. A new old tomorrow arrives.
Sure, but I was trying to emphasize that it was from education and
experience that I shed my prejudice, except in the one case where I
see several black males wearing poor clothing, in which case my
automatic fear response jumps up, though because so many poor black
men are disproportionally criminals in our culture, that fear might be
statistically warranted anyway.
> I've had this theory for a new years that change is a bandwidth issue.
> People don't change much they just shuffle their prejudices around like a
> FIFO queue. The average asshole yesterday is much the same as the average
> asshole tomorrow. I suppose, cultural, biological, and market evolution are
> the same in that respect. Growth is slow.
Which prejudices to they shuffle around and how? Racism is really
deep, and I don't see someone being a racist one year, and then giving
that up and being a misogynistic sexist the next year -- you must
mean more superficial prejudices. A lot of the way that "average
assholes" relate is to bond by sharing a mutual prejudice -- that
would account for what you're saying. That is, when George Dubya Bush
was president, liberals here bonded with each other by mutually hating
George Bush together. Now that Obama is president, conservatives bond
by mutually hating Obama together. The conservatives now strikingly
make the same claims about Obama that liberals used to make about Bush
(that he's a liar, only puts on an act, is a greedy power-monger, as
well as various conspiracy theories). I think the point might be that
some prejudices help create bonds by creating a common enemy, the way
in movies the hero gets the girl by them both escaping or overcoming
the bad guys.
> I also don't think there's much difference between the top and the bottom.
> They're mirror opposites of each other. One is physical and the other will
> mug you with their chequebook but it works out the same. Compare, say,
> princes trapped in their gilded cage and niggah's in da hood. They're just a
> reflection of each other.
>
> --
> Charles E Hardwidge
Well, that's an interesting issue, more of a social class than race
one: is white collar crime not as bad as blue collar crime? Why if
Martha Stewart cheated and illegally stole hundreds of dollars, was
she given a light slap-on-the-wrist sentence, whereas the poor black
guy who robs a 7-11 in the hood for a only a couple of hundred dollars
get a 10 year sentence? And I guess it's because of the gun-in-your-
face part, the physical violence threat, and our lives aren't
threatened by Martha's stealing the way we're threatened by a thug
armed with a deadly weapon. But psychologically, they may be equally
immoral (the thug may even be more morally justified in stealing, if
he is broke and has no money to eat.)
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
> On Jan 3, 1:26 am, zenworm <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Here is something interesting.
> > In The Book of Masters there is a chapter on
> > The Physiology of Enlightening Being wherein
> > it is described that in the unenlightened mind
> > the intuitive and the rational parts of the brain
> > fire very quickly and most of the time
> > asynchronously whereas in an enlightened
> > person the firing is slower (lasts longer) and is
> > much more often synchronous.
>
> The Book of Masters? The Disney Film????
no
the information on chess has been that chess is
learned as a visual language where through
experience an understanding of 'context' based
on the position of the pieces and the next 'word'
for a successful outcome is recalled from previous
experience with a successful context.
this seems to be reason and memory and a learned
successful response to a pattern which is known
and remembered or of a similar enough context
when rationally examined that the next step in the
pattern is recognizable. ^worm does not see much
intuition needed for this. Rather it seems a contest
of memory of successful contexts and next steps in
a development of successful prosecution and at the
same time working against your own 'overload threshold'
vs the opponents 'overload threshold' in adapting to
variations from the known successful contexts.
Often in chess because of it's complexity it is possible
to vary the context in a potentially losing situation, with
a 'side gambit' that has little strategic value to checkmate,
but alters the context enough that the opponent at his
'overload threshold' is not able to continue to cope
with the main context's theme an prosecute the checkmate.
In short if the diversionary strategy plays into the main
context and seems to add significant complexity, the
opponent's 'overload threshold' is over matched and his
sense of context loses coherence.
Lotza fun, but how does intuition play in?
If intuition is not remembering or sorting or sifting how
do you define it?
^worm
Julian
> � What is consciousness?
> � Do we have a core identity beyond our biology, mind, and ego?
> � Is there life after death? Does this identity outlive the molecules
> through which it expresses itself?
>
> The rules will be simple. He can argue from any basis he chooses, and
> I will confine myself entirely to science. For we have reached the
> state where Shermer's tired, out-of-date, utterly mediocre science is
> far in arrears of the best, most open scientific thinkers -- actually,
> we reached that point 60 years ago when eminent physicists like
> Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger
> applied quantum theory to deep spiritual questions. The arrogance of
> skeptics is both high-handed and rusty. It is high-handed because they
> lump brilliant speculative thinkers into one black box known as woo
> woo. It is rusty because Shermer doesn't even bother to keep up with
> the latest findings in neuroscience, medicine, genetics, physics, and
> evolutionary biology. All of these fields have opened fascinating new
> ground for speculation and imagination. But the king of pooh-pooh is
> too busy chasing down imaginary woo woo.
>
> Skeptics feel that they have won the high ground in matters concerning
> consciousness, mind, the origins of life, evolutionary theory, and
> brain science. This is far from the case. What they cling to is 19th
> Century materialism, packaged with a screeching hysteria about God and
Sigh... and you(s) wonder why you're genetic cul-de-sacs?
Lee Rudolph
>Actually, you can learn a hell of a lot from having college students
>play "let's pretend". I think Stanley Milgram's experiments were
>insightful and fantastic, btw.
Milgram ran at least one (of his two) "electric shock" studies
on New Haven townies (of all ages), not just Yalies. And when
I wrote "let's pretend", I meant "let's pretend": Milgram and
his stooges were the only ones pretending--they were deceiving
the subjects into false beliefs (which is one reason why IRBs
came into existence shortly thereafter, and why Milgram could
never, ever get away with his experiment today; the fairly
recent replay of that experiment, by some earnest dude in
California, was considerably watered down to get past IRB).
"Let's pretend" experiments are those in which subjects^W
participants are instructed to ...well, pretend something
(consciously); like at least several of the ones you reported
(I confess I couldn't stomach reading the whole article).
>In this case, this set of nine distinct studies make a lot of
>interesting suggestions about how most people in our culture think and
>behave.
Do they, indeed? Suggestions based on extrapolation to "most
people in our culture" from "a bunch of [almost surely ethnically
and economically unrepresentative, by definition age-unrepresentative,
at least partially self-selected] college students [of whom a large
majority of the females are taking birth-control pills and thus
hormonally skewed far off whatever was going on in the Era of
Evolutionary Adaptation; and let's not even get into the effects
on the subject pool of all their prescription and recreational
psychotropic drugs, only *some* of which were available from
Healthy All-Natural Sources during the EEA]" are, perhaps, just
*slightly* likely to have been influenced by the preconceptions
of the experimenters in whose minds the suggestions arise.
>And they make provide clues to the way we mysteriously evolved
>the way we did to get to where we are now. Certainly the 'soft'
>sciences are more fuzzy and speculative, and this isn't like a physics
>experiment, but there is a lot to be learned from them.
>
>I read a book recently on this very same kind of topic that a Buddhist
>teacher recommended to me, "Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's
>Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution", by Leonard Shlain. It was all
>speculative like this, and didn't even have any experiments with
>college Psyc 101 students to back it up! But it was fascinating, and
>Schlain's theory's are interesting, and I'd love to find out if any
>corroborating evidence for it shows up. I like this stuff because it
>makes you think, and you can relate it to your own social life. I
>wouldn't 'believe' it or anything, but take it as an explanation that
>makes sense and which merits more attention.
Uh-huh.
One study that I like might appeal to you. (I could probably chase
down a citation but I'd rather not; I heard about it in a talk by
the experimenter, a woman at Brandeis, I didn't read it.) Women
in estrus show a greater preference for symmetric male faces than
do women (the same and others) not in estrus. Hypothetical
explanation: facial and bodily asymmetry correlate (positively,
and highly by social-science standards) with other, invisible,
(minor) genetic flaws, and thus indicate good people to avoid
mating with.
There is an extension of the work (experiments as well as wild
hypothesizing) to women's preferences in male armpit odor: turns
out that they can (apparently) smell molecular asymmetry when it's
to their reproductive advantage!
Lee Rudolph
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Jan 3, 3:20 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>> I've had this theory for a new years that change is a bandwidth issue.
>> People don't change much they just shuffle their prejudices around like a
>> FIFO queue. The average asshole yesterday is much the same as the average
>> asshole tomorrow. I suppose, cultural, biological, and market evolution
>> are the same in that respect. Growth is slow.
>
> Which prejudices to they shuffle around and how? Racism is really
> deep, and I don't see someone being a racist one year, and then giving
> that up and being a misogynistic sexist the next year -- you must
> mean more superficial prejudices.
>> I also don't think there's much difference between the top and the
>> bottom. They're mirror opposites of each other. One is physical and the
>> other will mug you with their chequebook but it works out the same.
>> Compare, say, princes trapped in their gilded cage and niggah's in da
>> hood. They're just a reflection of each other.
>
> Well, that's an interesting issue, more of a social class than race
> one: is white collar crime not as bad as blue collar crime? Why if
> Martha Stewart cheated and illegally stole hundreds of dollars, was
> she given a light slap-on-the-wrist sentence, whereas the poor black
> guy who robs a 7-11 in the hood for a only a couple of hundred dollars
> get a 10 year sentence? And I guess it's because of the gun-in-your-
> face part, the physical violence threat, and our lives aren't
> threatened by Martha's stealing the way we're threatened by a thug
> armed with a deadly weapon. But psychologically, they may be equally
> immoral (the thug may even be more morally justified in stealing, if
> he is broke and has no money to eat.)
Prejudices like management theories waft in and out of fashion. Currently,
there's a trend against "big government" and "kowtowing to minorities". I
agree, there's issues there but the Tories styling themselves as the party
of change while being complicit with a mere swing of the pendulum is
ridiculous. Poison or revolver, dear? Personally, I'd rather go for Plan C
but neither the media (or British) get or like real change. Who does?
Yup. Went to a public meeting over a decade back and heard all the yaddah,
yaddah. Pointed out the X billion cost of blue collar crime and raised an
estimation of how much white collar crime might cost and the place exploded
like I'd struck a match in a room full of gas. I can't remember the numbers
now but blue collar crime is relatively trivial to white collar crime.
Indeed, white collar crime can and does lead to blue collar crime.
I bugged my MP about the real cost of so called cost saving economic
and social policies. He was a dud so that never went anywhere. A rough
calculation suggested Tory politics might lose the economy something like
10-30 billion GBP annually (or 50 to 150 billion GBP over a parliament).
Labour have never used that as a major campaign strategy while the Tories
scream at the top of their voices about Labour "bankrupting" the country.
I have examples but I'm a bit fuzzy on them so will skip that. Ah, yes. Now
I remember. Someone observed how the left was weak even when the right had
lost all credibility after the banking crisis. I believe this is another
issue of mindset where the left don't get management or presentation, and
the right just don't give a shit what they believe or give a damn. It's the
old ding-dong politics and unless Britain embraces meaningful change the
cycle will continue.
Maybe it's just another of those coincidences (which have happened so much
it's beyond ridiculous) but Professor Anthony King was quoted as saying in
the FT a few days after I raised it that the most pressing issue for Britain
was culture change. I've also said and seen other people comment that
Britain has imported American and Japanese techniques but instead of taking
the best from them Britain has taken the worst. I agree, this is the
problem. Britain's wires are crossed. Untangling them is the challenge.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Tang Huyen
Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
> Maybe it's just another of those coincidences (which
> have happened so much it's beyond ridiculous) but
> Professor Anthony King was quoted as saying in the
> FT a few days after I raised it that the most pressing
> issue for Britain was culture change. I've also said
> and seen other people comment that Britain has
> imported American and Japanese techniques but
> instead of taking the best from them Britain has taken
> the worst. I agree, this is the problem. Britain's wires
> are crossed. Untangling them is the challenge.
<<Britain has imported American and Japanese
techniques but instead of taking the best from them
Britain has taken the worst. I agree, this is the problem.
Britain's wires are crossed. Untangling them is the
challenge.>>
If people have been seriously inculcated into a religious
worldview, which nowadays gets called a fundie religious
worldview, some people stick with it, some drift away
without effort, some revolt against it and try to break
away. Palin belongs to the first group, and she seems
happy with it. The third group is very interesting. People
in it take their religious upbringing as seriously as people
in the first group (and people in both groups differ from
those in the second group, who peel away from their
religious upbringing without penalty), but negatively
(whereas people in the first group take it positively). They
revolt against it, but it sticks to them, and they can�t get
rid of it. So, the people in the second group drift away and
don�t bother, the people in the first group bother positively,
and the people in the third group bother negatively.
There are some representatives of the third group on
these boards, Sphere, DharmaTroll, and Fu, and all three
seem stuck with Christianity. Sphere morosely chases
God around as a bad idea, but God is a bad idea *that
matters to Sphere*. DharmaTroll seems to be somewhat
more personal and visceral than Sphere in his attack on
Christianity, whereas Fu seems wholly immersed in
revolting against Christianity (it seems that he is against
Catholicism). He denies that he ever was a Christian, but
for some years has devoted considerable time and effort
to an ardent anti-Christian crusade. He hangs around
anti-Christian web sites (e. g., Vic Stenger), posts a lot
of angry anti-Christian posts on these boards, and seems
quite absorbed in bashing Christianity, even consumed
with it. When I used innocent expressions that were
meant in a generic (in Christian terms, pagan) sense, like
God and �the soul�, he charged in to take them strictly
in a Christian sense (which was wholly uncalled for),
wherein God can only mean the Christian God and �the
soul� can only mean the part of us that the Christian God
saves or damns, and not, say, mind, thought, the psyche
in general. His hyper-literalism extends to areas outside
of religion, like the floating sound of Viennese orchestras,
which is something that can be empirically verified by
going to concerts given by Viennese orchestras but which
is taken by him as something arcane, occult, metaphysical,
up there with angels floating in the air. In general he
seems to be a diehard Christian fundie who turns against
Christianity but who still thinks in a very Christian
manner, even if negatively, as concave to convex, and his
Christianity-guided thinking is very much like one-track
thinking, over which he has no or little control.
<<"Give me a child until he is (well, 7 or thereabouts)
and he shall be mine forever.">>
So he is very like Palin, except for the reversed emotional
tone. He is as immersed in Christianity as she is, but in
negativity. To both, Christianity is destiny. Therefore, if
they are equally engaged with Christianity, would it make
sense to enjoy it, like her, and not suffer it, like him?
Of course, if he wants to disengage, he should, and he has
had fifty or sixty years to do it, but has not, and probably
will not be able to do so now, what with his crash and
perhaps schizophrenia (his hyper-literalism is akin to the
"concretism" described in the literature on schizophrenia).
He apparently began to revolt early, about twelve, but
was arrested at the stage of revolt (perhaps because he
liked the feeling, and Christianity belonged to his
"known", it was the "known" world to him, so that if he
revolted against it, he still lived in his "known world")
and never went beyond it, to any kind of resolution,
either in accepting Christianity or in letting go of it
gracefully. Christianity is his cross to bear, and he can
do nothing about that fact/fiction. Be it fact or fiction,
if it is real to him, it is real to him.
<<Began when I was 12, reading yoga, philosophy and
metaphysics. Father's death at 14 and subsequent family
upheaval pushed me harder. Meditated and read (mostly
zen) for nearly a year. One afternoon, when I was
15 - trying to swallow a passage from Suzuki's "Way of
Zen"- my mind flipped and "I" vanished into everything.
It was all "OK-ness"- pure joy. Almost like "getting" a
joke - so simple, after all. All was so clear and wonderful
that I laughed for hours in (choose a word) at cracks in
the sidewalk and life and death and all kinds of things for
days afterward. Before learning to
(practice/keep/maintain/?) 'no self' and beginners mind,
I, too, "forgot" a number of times.>>
So, Fu seems to get the worst from Christianity, and the
more he carries Christianity in his head to bash it, the
more it bashes him, from the inside. All that internal
warfare, for nothing.
Tang Huyen
Charles E Hardwidge
Nutball.
Header title reset.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
TVTom
wrote:
Same old, Same old, Tang. I thought you were going to say something
new, and that Charles' political ideas triggered some new connection
in you, as I haven't seen you mention the likes of Palin before. But
now it's the same old blather.
This is so boring I can't even get through the next run-on paragraph.
<snippers>
> So, Fu seems to get the worst from Christianity, and the
> more he carries Christianity in his head to bash it, the
> more it bashes him, from the inside. All that internal
> warfare, for nothing.
>
> Tang Huyen
All Fu, and you don't even bother to make up new stuff about me,
again, eh? Come on, Tang. Let's get into it. Nobody tried to nail me
with his scientism claims, but I pointed out that all his links
pointed to exactly what I was talking about, that the term is just an
insult, a euphemism for the most extreme case of positivism, and used
by pseudo-science nutters to strawman science and pretend it is
another nutter religion like theirs. And then you post a wonderful
article from the NYTimes (which I reposted on Facebook, thanks) that
precisely captures my view, while you accuse me of silliness (much
like your God silliness accusations) as if I would claim that we could
know an infinite amount of facts, when what I said was that there's no
evidence for gods or ghosts. Your punches just keep missing, Tang. I'm
too fast for you. I'm truly the Alpha-male so far this decade! You
just are into the same-old, same-old. And now it's back to repeating
more blather that you make up about Fu, that everyone knows is part of
your neurotic projections of whatever. Maybe you should ask Robbie to
get you some organic, woowoopathic Ginkgo pills to expand those brain
capillaries so you can think up something new, eh?
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
Mild-mannered "TVTom" is my "Clark Kent" persona.
I'm at http://www.facebook.com/tvtom
if anyone wants to add me as a Facebook friend.
It's really I, though, The totally awesome goodliest...
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
> Oops. Was playing games and posting on Facebook again.
> Mild-mannered "TVTom" is my "Clark Kent" persona.
TransVestite?
^worm
Wally Chapman
>>>> rid of it. So, the people in the second group drift away and
Why aren't there any women commenting on this thread? Too busy
volunteering?
Wally
halfawake
Happy to get you some too, DT, unless your brain is already too full of
blood. I don't want your head to 'splode.
Robert
=================================
DharmaTroll
Grrrrr. No, Television. I got the nickname in my first semester of
college, where I gave a large TV set to a cute girl I had a crush on
who carpooled with me an hour on weekends to our hometown. All the
girls on her floor would crowd into her room to watch stupid girly
shows like "Friends" or whatever, and they all called me "TVTom" from
that incident. And that spread, as we had a interconnecting network of
friends. So years later, when I moved to my hippie neighborhood, my
neighbor down the street, who is an engineer and computer programmer
who was in my calculus classes in that freshman year, introduced me to
everyone as "TVTom" years later now, and so I use that as my gaming
profile and all the neighborhood woo-sters now call me that as well.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
memory, it's unclear whether the most recent JAMA article will dent
sales. Those who believe in and eagerly consume ginkgo biloba may,
perhaps ironically, forget about latest batch of bad news."
"While the results do seem damning — the authors of the JAMA article
indeed conclude that there's no reason to take ginkgo other than blind
faith — this won't be the last word on the herb's usefulness.
Cognition is too complicated and studies have been too short to rule
out long-term use for a middle-age adult to prevent mental decline."
What You Should Really Remember About Ginkgo
http://www.livescience.com/health/100105-gingko-treatment.html
By Christopher Wanjek,
LiveScience's Bad Medicine Columnist
posted: 05 January 2010 08:36 am ET
Whether your memory loss is isolated to a recent, foggy patch between
New Year's Eve and noon the next day, or whether it is more profound,
popping ginkgo biloba to enhance your recollection or any other
cognitive function might be of little value.
In the largest study to date, U.S.-based researchers have found no
evidence that daily ginkgo supplements slow the rate of cognitive
decline or dementia in older adults. The study, published in the Dec.
23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was a
randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of more
than 3,000 adults aged 72 to 96 who were followed for for six years on
average.
This same study, called the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study,
had found in 2008 that ginkgo supplements were not effective in
reducing the incidence of Alzheimer dementia or dementia overall.
While the results do seem damning — the authors of the JAMA article
indeed conclude that there's no reason to take ginkgo other than blind
faith — this won't be the last word on the herb's usefulness.
Cognition is too complicated and studies have been too short to rule
out long-term use for a middle-age adult to prevent mental decline.
History worth remembering
Ginkgo leaves and seeds have been used medicinally for centuries in
Chinese traditional medicine for all types of ailments, from gout to
gonorrhea. Like aspirin, ginkgo can reduce blood clotting and improve
circulation. And also like aspirin, it does little for gout or
gonorrhea.
Ginkgo become popular in the West in the 1980s when a German company
called Dr. Willmar Schwabe Pharmaceuticals began manufacturing a high-
quality extract for the European and U.S. markets. Nature's Way, a
U.S.-based dietary supplement maker, carries Schwabe's patented
formula under the name Ginkgold, one of the company's best-selling
products.
Ginkgo has promising medicinal properties, and many scientists were
initially excited by its potential. By 1997 things were looking good
for ginkgo advocates. JAMA published the results of a yearlong study
of about 200 adults, albeit supported by Schwabe Pharmaceuticals,
which found that ginkgo improved cognitive performance — and so begot
the words "clinically proven" adorning bottles of ginkgo biloba
extract.
Few studies have been able buoy these claims, though. A slightly
larger but shorter study (not supported by Schwabe Pharmaceuticals)
published in JAMA in 2002, found no benefit for memory or cognitive
function. Curiously, a Schwabe-supported study of almost the exact
same size and duration published almost exactly the same time in a
minor journal called Human Psychopharmacology, led by a scientist at
Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, found, well, you guessed it:
Ginkgo works.
The news media followed accordingly, reporting mixed results; and
ginkgo's popularity continued to grow.
History worth repeating
Here we are eight years later with another curious battle between JAMA
and Human Psychopharmacology. Schwabe Pharmaceuticals posted a press
release on its website last month titled "Ginkgo biloba extract is
effective for cognitive decline," highlighting the results of a July
2009 article in Human Psychopharmacology called "Ginkgo biloba:
specificity of neuropsychological improvement — a selective review in
search of differential effects."
As the journal article title suggests, this analysis cherry-picks 29
studies from 1980 to 2007 with a total of 2,414 participants for an
entirely different purpose: not to see if ginkgo works but rather
identify characteristics of reported benefits. Schwabe Pharmaceuticals
didn't fund the study.
Schwabe, naturally, isn't thrilled with the new JAMA article that
concludes ginkgo doesn't help memory, calling it "methodologically so
weak that it is of limited relevance," in a Dec. 29 statement.
Schwabe's Jochen Mühlhoff raised several legitimate points in an e-
mail to LiveScience: namely that the rate of cognitive decline across
the study, even in the placebo group, was "extraordinarily slow" — too
small to distinguish adequately — and that the study would have to run
another 10 years for "relevant mental decline" to be evident.
Also, as noted in the study, about 40 percent of the participants
weren't taking ginkgo or the placebo regularly by the end of the
study.
With ginkgo's purported effectiveness so entrenched in our collective
memory, it's unclear whether the most recent JAMA article will dent
sales. Those who believe in and eagerly consume ginkgo biloba may,
perhaps ironically, forget about latest batch of bad news. Remember
you heard it here first.>>
--DharmaTroll
Tang Huyen
Lee Rudolph wrote:
> Milgram ran at least one (of his two) "electric shock" studies
> on New Haven townies (of all ages), not just Yalies. And when
> I wrote "let's pretend", I meant "let's pretend": Milgram and
> his stooges were the only ones pretending--they were deceiving
> the subjects into false beliefs (which is one reason why IRBs
> came into existence shortly thereafter, and why Milgram could
> never, ever get away with his experiment today; the fairly
> recent replay of that experiment, by some earnest dude in
> California, was considerably watered down to get past IRB).
> "Let's pretend" experiments are those in which subjects^W
> participants are instructed to ...well, pretend something
> (consciously); like at least several of the ones you reported
> (I confess I couldn't stomach reading the whole article).
To see people vomit and/or faint in real life (and
not in a pretend experiment blessed with ivory
tower derealisation) and progressively get worse
(three people died) did not alarm a couple who
worked for self-help guru James Arthur Ray.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/
2010/02/03/national/a160753S36.DTL&tsp=1
<<Two employees of a motivational speaker
facing manslaughter charges told authorities they
had no reason to be alarmed when participants in
a deadly Arizona sweat lodge ceremony began
vomiting and passing out, because their boss told
them such responses were to be expected,
according to documents released Friday.
Megan and Josh Fredrickson participated in the
October sweat lodge ceremony near Sedona,
which authorities say led to the deaths of three
people. The event was led by self-help guru James
Arthur Ray.>>
<<Prosecutors contend Ray recklessly crammed
participants into a 400-square-foot sweat lodge
and chided them for wanting to leave, even as
people were vomiting, getting burned by hot rocks,
and lying lifeless on the ground. Public records
show a pattern of illnesses at Ray-led events that
he largely ignored.
His attorneys have said the deaths were a tragic
accident, not a criminal act.
Megan Fredrickson said people who were vomiting,
unresponsive and unconscious raised no red flags
with her because Ray had explained those
responses were possibilities. She told authorities
that her experience with sweat lodges was limited
to the ones led by Ray, and she never took it upon
herself to research them or find out why people
would pass out.
"James is my boss, so I listened to what he says and
I listened to what he told participants," she said in
the documents.>>
Milgram's experiments were a walk in the park
relative to the above sweat lodge events. Tout est de
rigueur, tout est comme il faut.
Tang Huyen