Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2011 - 01:48pm PT
|
Jan raises the interesting possibility that meditation may be a non-genetic method we might use to allow us to by-pass the 20,000 year limit on our ability to adapt genetically to fast changing environments.
We may well not survive if we attempt to continue as we are into the resource poor and highly overpopulated future. Without help the brain structure cannot adapt in time via the genetic pathway.
Indeed you have to ask if this has not already been shown to be true when you consider that meditation has a long history in the over-populated east. While it has yet to gain wide use here in the new world.
Jan may be one of the leading bridges between the two experiences.
The entirely pointless invasion of Iraq, possibly, is data pointing to the urgency of the task before us.
Greed can kill.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2011 - 02:04pm PT
|
jstan,
It's an awful thing to contemplate, but there is the possibility that our species could lose 95% of itself at some point to maladaptation (say, 9.5 billion out of 10 billion leaving 500 million). That would leave plenty to carry on. Chances are, this "remnant fraction" would be more adapted, too.
You can do the numbers: even 99.5% population reduction would still leave a whopping 50 million.
Such is evolution in the long-term. Of all thought-provoking contemplations, that one has to be high on the list.
.....
re: meditation and its influence
Well, obviously general learning (our species premiere feature) is even more fundamental to over-riding our genetic hardwiring.
That's what learning (e.g., K-12) is all about: shaping the plasticity of the nervous system - laying down circuitry in gray and white matter.
.....
EDIT
Today, our "cups are full" of learning. Arguably our reptilian circuits (whose specialty is emotion) don't like what the higher circuits (of learning and learning-informed social morality) have been telling them. The result may be increased stress. -Differentially distributed across our wide population.
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2011 - 02:40pm PT
|
From a New York Times Article today:
How meditation may change the brain.
M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.
Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time.
In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/how-meditation-may-change-the-brain/?src=me&ref=general
Jan good thoughts. Thanks for sharing that.
No doubt, no doubt meditation works.
GOD even instructs us to meditate on his word day and night.
I would say a believer gets a double benefit. You get the benefit of meditation, and then what you meditate on is important. For some it is Om. I would say meditating on the word of GOD and what it means would be of great value. Then it becomes you and lives within you.
Joshua 1:8 ‘This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth , but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success’.
http://rfmg.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/why-should-you-meditate-on-the-word-of-god-day-and-night/
Good stuff. Very good stuff.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2011 - 02:45pm PT
|
This is a god-free zone.
GOD even instructs us to meditate on his word day and night.
Question: Would that be Ashtar, Marduk, or Jehovah (a sampling of Mesopotamian gods) or Amon-Re, Isis or Zeus (a sampling of Mediterranean gods)? Please take your answer to the God thread.
EDIT
Here's Sam Harris from amazon.com:
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2011 - 02:57pm PT
|
HFCS,
Sorry, but you brought it up.
You are the one who posted about Sam Harris's new book. He constantly brings up GOD, and his adversion to GOD.
GOD therefore, is fair game in this thread.
There is no question about the GOD of whom I speak. The one and only true GOD.
You know. You choose to battle against him constantly.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2011 - 03:03pm PT
|
Reframe it,
Sam brings up humanity's madeup narratives concerning jehovah and rightly criticizes religious institutions for showing no interest or leadership in moving beyond them (or at least in updating them) in the interest of best practices in living (cf: best practices in climbing).
Attitude is everything. So is reframing. Reframing is everything. In thought and in language.
.....
Sam Harris writes-
"there may be different ways for people to thrive, but there are clearly many more ways for them not to thrive. The Taliban are a perfect example of a group of people who are struggling to build a society that is obviously less good than many of the other societies on offer. Afghan women have a 12% literacy rate and a life expectancy of 44 years. Afghanistan has nearly the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. It also has one of the highest birthrates. Consequently, it is one of the best places on earth to watch women and infants die."
And Afghanistan’s GDP is currently lower than the world’s average was in the year 1820. It is safe to say that the optimal response to this dire situation—that is to say, the most moral response—is not to throw battery acid in the faces of little girls for the crime of learning to read. This may seem like common sense to us—and it is—but I am saying that it is also, at bottom, a claim about (from) biology, psychology, sociology, and economics. It is not, therefore, unscientific to say that the Taliban are wrong about morality. In fact, we must say this, the moment we admit that we know anything at all about human well-being.
.....
Question: But what if the Taliban simply have different goals in life?
Sam Harris
Well, the short answer is—they don’t. They are clearly seeking happiness in this life, and, more importantly, they imagine that they are securing it in a life to come. They believe that they will enjoy an eternity of happiness after death by following the strictest interpretation of Islamic law here on earth. This is also a claim about which science should have an opinion—as it is almost certainly untrue. There is no question, however, that the Taliban are seeking well-being, in some sense—they just have some very strange beliefs about how to attain it.
Shows how religious narratives of old make a mess of it. Shows how important it is to get the "map" or "model" right - for how the world works - as this "model's" say (or wisdom) rightly feeds back to inform morals, one's own and society's.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2011 - 01:37am PT
|
Interesting point of view from jstan.
The meditation masters do speak about meditation as speeding up the spiritual evolution of the human race. However, it might be more appealing to many people in the modern secular societies of the world to speak in terms of non genetic brain improvement.
As far as general science education versus meditation as Fructose proposes, he's comparing apples and oranges, or rather the left brain versus the right brain. Both halves are important.
Yes we need better science education for the left brain, especially science education that encourages rational and critical thinking rather than sheer memorization of formulas as I experienced when I took my mandatory science courses.
However, we also need to develop our intuitive, emotional, and artistic right brain where our long term memory storage lies and our emotions. Until this is understood, all the scientific training in the world will continue to be over ridden by our brute Paleolithic emotions.
Either way you look at it, from either half of the brain, our education system is obsolete.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2011 - 11:05am PT
|
"As far as general science education versus meditation as Fructose proposes, he's comparing apples and oranges, or rather the left brain versus the right brain. Both halves are important."
Okay, Jan and jstan must have conspired to wind me up. ;)
First, jstan suggests in a post that I'm starting (or trying to start) a "new religion". Tsk.
Then Jan posts up suggesting I'm pitting "science education" against "meditation." (If I read her post and implications "between the lines" correctly.) Tsk.
I must not be communicating effectively. Darn. -Because a previous post of mine merely cited that "learning" (in addition to meditation) (and I didn't allude to "science education" in that particular post) laid down neural circuitry (gray matter and white matter) - that's all. -Which is a simple matter of fact. -That might actually support the finding that meditation does, too.
.....
re: 1 left versus right brain, 2 analytical versus creative
No argument there. Across my engineering work I've been as much a design engineer as an analytical one. I know the role of right brain in creativity. I designed engineering products. I designed and built my own house. So no stranger to right brain activities here. Just saying.
.....
Bottom line: I admire Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins who I think history will recognized as pioneers breaking through to important areas on the right side of history. That's all. And I count myself as proponents of their work.
As Sam Harris pointed out in his response to critics, they are a dime a dozen, no doubt there are some on this site, as well. Time will tell how things pan out. In the interim, I find it all fascinating, progressive, attention-worthy.
jstan-
You can (a) lay down the groundwork for a modern "practice of living" that is science-BASED (that means not a "science" but simply science-BASED) and that focuses on life guidance and life strategies for better living (think Dr. Phil codified, if you want), then (b) flesh it out with facts and ideas, principles, policies and practices, then (c) develop a new language set (or terminology set) for it (to aid its communication, just as every other field as its own language); and last but not least (d) at the end of the day call it something other than "religion" (or a "philosophy" or an "atheism") in the interest of clearer communications such that it is NOT confused with the world's true "religions" which by and large are god and theology-based and rely on supernaturalist belief.
I hope this is clear. Just giving you a heads up.
jan-
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, to develop such a system (i.e., a "practice" of living that is not only codified but popular - at least among the educated technical demographics) by anyone (an individual or a team or a community) would require "High Usage" of both left brain AND right brain circuitry, systems. -As I'm sure you know. -As I'm sure the likes of Sam Harris knows as well.
P.S.
And if Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, to take an example, doesn't show right brain thinking in a particular setting, perhaps it's only because they are in that particular setting that calls for analysis, analytical thinking, and not something more. I'm pretty sure if I were out rockclimbing in the High Sierra with Sam Harris, I'd see a side or two of him OTHER THAN his "cold calculating matter-of-fact overly analytic scientific" side.
Later...
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2011 - 12:47pm PT
|
HFCS:
My head is up.
I think I pointed out what it is that makes a religion a religion. It is anything held not subject to challenge, is perfect and is not subject to improvement. And, most critically, this holding is not supported by any objective data.
One always has to be careful not to take something that quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and swims like a duck, but , trust me it's not a duck.
Sloppy thinking and poor use of language gets attention, but succeed only in being absurd.
Klimmer's religion of science was just such.
People in great numbers die on that path.
You know you are on that path when perfectly convinced your path is right.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2011 - 01:00pm PT
|
Again, maybe just miscommunications.
I was giving you "a heads up" on the projects I'm (a) following and (b) involved in, not a heads up on anything else.
Based on your own definition of "religion" (which you just described in the post above this one) what I'm involved in then is anything but a "new religion." And FWIW, nor is the work under development that involves me a "science" either.
TFPU.
Cheers. :)
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2011 - 12:52pm PT
|
Thought a couple of you might enjoy this exchange between Steven Pinker, evolutionary psychologist, and Sam Harris, philosopher and neuroscientist, regarding morality and violence.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/qa-with-steven-pinker/
Sam also has a new ebook, Lying. I have it but haven't read it yet.
.....
De-supernaturalizing aspects of human nature - evil to morality to end-of-life stuff - is the next big advance (a) in the "practice" of living or (b) in the evolution of belief discipline practices. (However you want to say it.) Beta: Be a pioneer and get on board to help make a difference.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2011 - 03:33pm PT
|
I can't see how human cloning could be a good thing, from a natural selection process, from a reproductive-error standpoint, etc. I just see it as continued 'departure' from the natural selection processes what got us here in the first place.
(1) As you know, cloning would be a case of artificial selection, as is today's sperm bank utilization by growing numbers of women. (2) Unchecked reproduction is not a good thing either. Maybe it's a case of the lesser of two evils?
When one takes into account (a) that our species strengths are phenotypic expressions of our genetics and genotypic strengths; (b) that genetic systems including ours can be sharpened by selection or dulled by pressures, e.g., entropy, or lack thereof; (c) that history's honing mechanisms via natural selection have been by and large turned off on H. sapiens by modernity's control over "the arena of pressure" known as nature red in tooth n claw - there are reasons for concern. -Reasons for concern that aren't being talked about - that those in the know (e.g., many an evolutionary biologist or geneticist) not to mention politicians won't touch with the proverbial 10-foot pole for obvious reasons.
Ruling out hand to hand combat via tribal warfare, it may turn out that (regenerative) cloning may be the future's only way to restore strength to an entropy-suffering and languishing gene pool. Either it's (a) cloning (via artificial selection) or its reproduction under alpha males (via as or ns). The choice will be the future's to make. Maybe it will be a combination of both cloning and alpha-reproduction. Who knows? (Now this of course assumes civilization doesn't implode taking its cloning capabilities down with it.)
relegated to the back bins of human history
We will be "relegated" in relatively short order if we don't continue to have some sort of "honing mechanism" operating on our species gene pool to strengthen it or to keep it strong. Entropy would see to it.
Homo clonus? Hahaha. I like to imagine a hominid line from H. sapiens to H. superbus.
Regarding our impact on ecological systems, we're already deep into that regardless of cloning or artificial selection. And certainly it's a tragegy as my own value system assesses it.
Once we start f*#king with the system is it too late to go back?
There is much to be said for the in for a penny strategy that you allude to - "too late to go back." Since we're already deep into this predicament, this terra incognita, the way forward is through to the end, the way forward is not to retreat - even if that were possible. In the end, perhaps we may well crash and burn because of our uniquely human traits: intelligence and tool-using capabilities. But on the other hand the alternative to h. sapiens is what? Arguably it is a makeup, a nature and a life at best like the orangs, chimps or gorillas.
How can this be a good thing for humanity, long term?
There's the rub, I say. It wouldn't be a good thing for "humanity" - but it would be a good thing for H. clonus or H. superbus. Many years ago, I shifted my thinking if not my valuation from (a) human preservation in the interest of higher civilization to (b) hominid progress via evolution in the interest of higher civilization. There's a difference there, I think you would agree.
Long term, the way out of our predicament is through (some sort of) reproduction management (either by design or, as is often the case, by a set of solutions that fall into place by more or less happenstance and are selected for based on "what works"). Cloning or alpha male reproduction would be two solutions or tools in this management tool box for honing the gene pool.
Inhebitude, or genetic inhebitude, is the name for a weakening gene pool due to entropy effects, unchecked reproduction, etc. It is the enemy to a species' robustness.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not confident about any cloning future, etc.. It's a heavy and hairy subject. It's interesting thinking tho. For sure, it would be full of risk, uncertainty and adventure. But that's just like rockclimbing, right, not to mention unroped free soloing. :)
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."
 Sagan
|
|
graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
|
|
Genius Werner wrote:
Make a "life bomb" so you do not die!
It has already been invented. It's called sexual intercourse.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2011 - 03:47pm PT
|
A. I don't believe it
B. You certainly haven't demonstrated it
Insofar as one's educated in evolutionary theory, evolutionary genetics, typically through the experience of taking the respective science courses these are the facts.
|
|
graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
|
|
When one takes into account (a) that our species strengths are phenotypic expressions of our genetics and genotypic strengths; (b) that genetic systems including ours can be sharpened by selection or dulled by pressures, e.g., entropy; (c) that history's honing mechanisms via natural selection have been by and large turned off on H. sapiens by modernity's control over "the arena of pressure" known as nature red in tooth n claw - there are reasons for concern. -Reasons for concern that aren't being talked about - that those in the know (e.g., many an evolutionary biologist or geneticist) not to mention politicians won't touch with the proverbial 10-foot pole for obvious reasons.
They have't been turned off. They're just somewhat different then what they used to be.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2011 - 03:53pm PT
|
They have't been turned off.
You'll note I said "by and large" in there. Big difference.
They're just somewhat different then what they used to be.
Correct.
EDIT to ADD
Children born with genetically induced "defects" or diseases or shortcomings now differentially survive. Autistic children are cared for. That's a big difference from back in the day. Just a fact that bears on all these issues which makes it so hard if not impossible to talk about.
Gotta go...
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
"(b) that genetic systems including ours can be sharpened by selection or dulled by pressures, e.g., entropy; (c) that history's honing mechanisms via natural selection have been by and large turned off on H. sapiens by modernity's control over "the arena of pressure" known as nature red in tooth n claw - there are reasons for concern."
I am not sure my respons is adequate since I have not read the thread right from the start, but as I see it thoughts about human beings selecting certain genes to strengthen the human race is a perspective that do not take diversity into account. You can intentionally and at a broad scale select on certain genetic features or dispositions and that can possibly improve the health of the population at a certain point in time, but if that selection to a great extent limits the diversity in the population you could leave the population at large more fragil over time and the end result could be far removed from the intention.
I am not principally opposed to "genetic engineering", but it should be handled with care and used in individual cases only and within clear borders (clear criteria). It should never be allowed to end up as an experiment to create a human superrace.
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
FortMental
Hehe... confused parasite ... in case that includes my post I have no problem with it ... I am willing to be that confused parasite.
Ok, not my post. You say "If it were possible to engineer a biologically bulletproof human, there'd be no need for "diversity" other than spicing up a bedroom session."
1. If possible: In theory I agree.
2. But my point is that an experiment to realise this possibility could end up as a disaster. The intention of realising the possibility could end up with a rather unintended consequence. And within an American political reality - when the bulletproof genes should be chosen - hubba hubba who do you trust?
|
|
Splater
climber
Grey Matter
|
|
A very interesting article from the Atlantic a while back.
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm
APRIL 1998
Do we invent our moral absolutes in order to make society workable? Or are these enduring principles expressed to us by some transcendent or Godlike authority? Efforts to resolve this conundrum have perplexed, sometimes inflamed, our best minds for centuries, but the natural sciences are telling us more and more about the choices we make and our reasons for making them
by Edward O. Wilson
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!