Edge Question: Which science concept would make everyone think better?

Here is the "Edge World Question Center", a leading materialist think tank, with 2011's Question:

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER

James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "SHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", "placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate.

The Edge Question 2011

WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?

The term 'scientific"is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it be the human spirit, the role of great people in history, or the structure of DNA. A "scientific concept" may come from philosophy, logic, economics, jurisprudence, or other analytic enterprises, as long as it is a rigorous conceptual tool that may be summed up succinctly (or "in a phrase") but has broad application to understanding the world.

[Thanks to Steven Pinker for suggesting this year's Edge Question and to Daniel Kahneman for advice on its presentation.]

164 contributors, many whose names you will recognize, participated.

Any thoughts of your own? Go here to comment.

Note: Interesting, how many key words from medicine easily come to mind, yet medicine has slowly been moving away from a materialist paradigm, as Mario Beauregard and I noted in The Spiritual Brain.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Neuroscience and society: Emotional harm?

Here is an effort to quantify emotional harm:

“Two potential legal applications are advanced in this paper: (1) that science can provide empirical evidence of what it means to suffer emotional distress, thus helping to validate a claim that has always been subject to greater scrutiny; and (2) that this evidence may allow us to move away from the sharp distinction between how physical and emotional injuries are conceptualized, viewing both as valid types of harm with physiological origins.”

I find this "move away from the sharp distinction" stuff appalling, because – if accepted - it will surely become an instrument for tyranny.

Look at it this way: If a street perp breaks my arm trying to wrench my backpack away, I must wait hours in the triage line at the local hospital to get my arm reset. I can have whatever opinion I want, but my arm needs expert resetting regardless.

But, speaking of "emotional injuries": If I won’t leave the house for eighteen months because of that incident, even though I live in a generally safe neighbourhood or, if not, am free to move – it’s not the same thing, okay?

Sure, I would need help, but mainly psychological help with learning how to assess risk and take normal precautions. That's a choice, whereas getting a broken arm set is not.

The perp may be a miserable SOB who deserves to do time, but he is not directly responsible for my inability to cope.

Hence the law’s reasonable distinction between physical and emotional injuries. It's a question of how much control we have over how much we suffer. But, of course, those who do not believe in the existence of the mind or of free will would be attracted to views of the type noted in the abstract above.

My view: Instead of changing the law, how about free, non-violent self-defense courses for women? I’ll dig deep for that. I think non-violent self-defense courses should be part of a normal education anyway, like drownproofing and fire safety. We feel better about ourselves when we learn to access all the self-protection strategies available to us.

More "Neuroscience and society" stories. (Note: You must scroll past this story first.)

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Neuroscience and society: Hate Area of Brain Identified?

According to Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor, whose work was reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. (October 29, 2008)

New brain imaging studies show that people who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a hate circuit.

Hate circuit? This sort of thing makes me feel like giving up on neuroscience.

Why? Well, here's the scary part, courtesy Zemir Seki of University College, London:

“Interestingly, the activity in some of these structures in response to viewing a hated face is proportional in strength to the declared intensity of hate, thus allowing the subjective state of hate to be objectively quantified. This finding may have legal implications in criminal cases, for example.”

Yes, that is just what I had feared.

The problem is that subjective states of hate are a poor predictor of actions. Many people impoverish their lives by hating others for decades, but take no action. No doubt some signature can be detected in their brains. But if this fad spreads, thosse people could be falsely convicted of crimes.

That is precisely why criminal law makes the critical distinction between intent (= she was caught on security video plunging a knife into that guy) and motive (maybe she was angry about his government's policies?).

Here is an example of intent caught on camera:



Motive can provide useful background information, of course. Particularly, it can help determine whether the accused is insane, and thus not fit to stand trial. Here, neuroscience might be of use. Assume, for example, that the accused insists that "voices" inside her head tell her that she is chosen to save her society by committing assault with a deadly weapon on some airport employee. Perhaps neuroscientists can identify a physical disorder that inhibits reason-based thinking, and thus help a just resolution of the case.

But that is an example of neuroscience staying close to medicine and away from a variety of more suspect causes that try to co-opt it.

In general, motive (one's reason for taking action, as opposed to evidence of the action) may be useful in mitigating a sentence. Assume, for example, that a woman stabs a guy at an airport because he ended their affair, dumping her for a wealthy fashion model - leaving her pregnant and in big trouble with her relatives. Stabbing is still a crime, but ... a humane and intelligent judge would take motive into account when determining a sentence.

Alternatively, if, when she discusses her motives, she turns out to be under the control of a local terrorist, going after the terrorist would be the next key logical step. He is probably training others.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Other Neuroscience and society stories here.

Mind and society: Why you can trust the people, when they have a chance

A correspondent commends to me "Pray the Devil Back to Hell", an award-winning documentary about how Liberian women put a stop to a long and brutal war.

If so, they are deeply commended from my safe apartment in Toronto.

No country can prosper without good citizens. It is an old notion, called - in Latin - civitas , and in English "citizenship."

Liberia was founded by people who had lived in slavery in the United States, and we must all wish them well in this matter.

The lesson I take from these women's experience is, don't wait for the government to do things we can do ourselves.

That includes - in my experience, admittedly much less painful than these Liberians' - dealing with incidents of racism or anti-Semitism or just plain uncivil behaviour on one's own. Why ask for a big, expensive, and possibly useless or Constitnution-denying government process?

Yes, it creates government jobs. But why not just make clear that we think that the person who talks and acts that way is a useless, tasteless boob who probably couldn't get a job picking up after dogs?

Wouldn't that be far more useful and cheaper?

Society and values: Forget teaching about right and wrong where sex is concerned?

From Britain's Sunday Times (February 22, 2009), we learn

Parents told: avoid morality in sex lessons

Jack Grimston

PARENTS should avoid trying to convince their teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex, a new government leaflet is to advise.

Instead, any discussion of values should be kept “light” to encourage teenagers to form their own views, according to the brochure, which one critic has called “amoral.”

Well, such a view is amoral by definition, so the critic is redundantly stating a fact.

But several questions come immediately to mind:

- Was the doctor who implanted at least eight embryos in the "octomom" harming children by causing them to be born in dangerous circumstances? Or was that just a commercial transaction?
- What about people who claim to be sterile or using contraceptives, who in fact aren't? Or commit paternity fraud?

- What about the people who don't disclose sexually transmissible diseases to potential sex partners?

Of course teens differ with their parents about when, how, and with whom it is right to have sex, but I see no good coming from avoiding "the difference between right and wrong" in discussing the question.

It's all the difference in the world, actually.

Are the people who think avoidance is a good idea prepared to accept responsibility for all the consequences?