Untamed

Untamed

Brave New World

We are entering a new world, but we’re entering it as Paleolithic brains. Here’s my formula for Earth’s civilization: We are a Star Wars civilization. We have Stone Age emotions. We have medieval institutions — most notably, the churches. And we have god-like technology. And this god-like technology is dragging us forward in ways that are totally unpredictable.

-- E. O. Wilson

We'll also take an interview question.

_ _ _

Q: Are we doomed?

Wilson: I’d like to say no. I’m surely not going to be stupid enough to say yes. What I will say is: no, I hope.

Here’s my favorite little maxim. It’s from Abba Eban, foreign minister of Israel during the 1967 war, one more dumb, senseless war in the Middle East: “When all else fails, men turn to reason.”

I think maybe we are really and truly ready to start trying to solve problems for once in human history by using our forebrain.

-- E. O. Wilson at Grist.org

Brave New World

We are entering a new world, but we’re entering it as Paleolithic brains. Here’s my formula for Earth’s civilization: We are a Star Wars civilization. We have Stone Age emotions. We have medieval institutions — most notably, the churches. And we have god-like technology. And this god-like technology is dragging us forward in ways that are totally unpredictable.

-- E. O. Wilson

We'll also take an interview question.

_ _ _

Q: Are we doomed?

Wilson: I’d like to say no. I’m surely not going to be stupid enough to say yes. What I will say is: no, I hope.

Here’s my favorite little maxim. It’s from Abba Eban, foreign minister of Israel during the 1967 war, one more dumb, senseless war in the Middle East: “When all else fails, men turn to reason.”

I think maybe we are really and truly ready to start trying to solve problems for once in human history by using our forebrain.

-- E. O. Wilson at Grist.org

The Neuro-Science of Prayer

When I was a little serious about prayer, not very long ago, I wonder how my brain would've lit up the scans. My prayer was more along the lines of mantras, just repeating my formula to advance down my chain of rosary beads. I am not sure I should have given it up. Even if there is no God to hear me, I probably could use a prop to help maintain my thoughts on a higher moral plane. But the day is too brief.

_ _ _

n a recent study our team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain responded to praying in Christian believers. Surprisingly, considering God’s postulated invisibility, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, we found that conversing with God was not associated with regions that process abstract concepts. Rather, we found a marked pattern of activity in four regions that typically activate when humans relate to other humans. Neurologically, this finding suggests that strong believers process God as a concrete person – in spite of the theologically complex and highly abstract nature of the Christian God. Interestingly, we did not find this pattern in believers who did not use praying regularly. Perhaps the religious brain can learn to treat gods as real persons through regular practice and strong beliefs.

[...]

One might ask if these findings, then, are evidence that God is just an illusion, an imagined friend that always listens in times of distress? Or may they in fact be proof that God affects us even at the level of brain function? Atheists and believers alike take considerable interest in this kind of research. Fortunately, as a scientist my interest lies solely in the physical world and speculations about the spiritual dimension lie well beyond scientific scrutiny.

-- Uffe Schjødt at The European Magazine

The Neuro-Science of Prayer

When I was a little serious about prayer, not very long ago, I wonder how my brain would've lit up the scans. My prayer was more along the lines of mantras, just repeating my formula to advance down my chain of rosary beads. I am not sure I should have given it up. Even if there is no God to hear me, I probably could use a prop to help maintain my thoughts on a higher moral plane. But the day is too brief.

_ _ _

n a recent study our team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain responded to praying in Christian believers. Surprisingly, considering God’s postulated invisibility, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, we found that conversing with God was not associated with regions that process abstract concepts. Rather, we found a marked pattern of activity in four regions that typically activate when humans relate to other humans. Neurologically, this finding suggests that strong believers process God as a concrete person – in spite of the theologically complex and highly abstract nature of the Christian God. Interestingly, we did not find this pattern in believers who did not use praying regularly. Perhaps the religious brain can learn to treat gods as real persons through regular practice and strong beliefs.

[...]

One might ask if these findings, then, are evidence that God is just an illusion, an imagined friend that always listens in times of distress? Or may they in fact be proof that God affects us even at the level of brain function? Atheists and believers alike take considerable interest in this kind of research. Fortunately, as a scientist my interest lies solely in the physical world and speculations about the spiritual dimension lie well beyond scientific scrutiny.

-- Uffe Schjødt at The European Magazine

Perfect happiness

It is moments like this that have to make it all worthwhile.

Perfect happiness

It is moments like this that have to make it all worthwhile.

1984 (2,8) When Life Is Worth Living Again

We are still in the middle of the informal induction and orientation of Julia and Winston into the Brotherhood. Having learned of Julia’s weak spot for Winston, O’Brien seems to be playing with her, talking about how rebel life is not always favorable to the tender sensitivities of amour.

_ _ _

He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more expression in it:

'Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair -- even his voice would be different. And you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.'


Winston could not help snatching another sidelong glance at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly. She murmured something that seemed to be assent.

'Good. Then that is settled.'

[... And O’Brien proceeds to fill in Julia and Winston on the general nature of the underground life of rebellion.]

'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I shall send you a book from which you will learn the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members of the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that we are fighting for and the immediate tasks of the moment, you will never know anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen. You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time as they disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be preserved. When you receive orders, they will come from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it will be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to betray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall have become a different person, with a different face.'

He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease, amputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage. 'This is unavoidable,' his voice seemed to say; 'this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth living again.' A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed out from Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to believe that he could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was not equal to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia seemed to be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was listening intently.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

1984 (2,8) When Life Is Worth Living Again

We are still in the middle of the informal induction and orientation of Julia and Winston into the Brotherhood. Having learned of Julia’s weak spot for Winston, O’Brien seems to be playing with her, talking about how rebel life is not always favorable to the tender sensitivities of amour.

_ _ _

He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more expression in it:

'Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair -- even his voice would be different. And you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.'


Winston could not help snatching another sidelong glance at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly. She murmured something that seemed to be assent.

'Good. Then that is settled.'

[... And O’Brien proceeds to fill in Julia and Winston on the general nature of the underground life of rebellion.]

'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I shall send you a book from which you will learn the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members of the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that we are fighting for and the immediate tasks of the moment, you will never know anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen. You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time as they disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be preserved. When you receive orders, they will come from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it will be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to betray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall have become a different person, with a different face.'

He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease, amputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage. 'This is unavoidable,' his voice seemed to say; 'this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth living again.' A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed out from Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to believe that he could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was not equal to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia seemed to be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was listening intently.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

Miley

The money you gain is a type of compensation for all the hate on the internet and for the paparazzi. You can buy yourself a big house but you’re not able to leave it because as soon as you are out on the streets, its like you’re under fire.

-- Miley Cyrus

I guess it's true that we all have our problems. But I am pretty sure that she would rather keep hers than enjoy mine.

You got to love the part when she is running in her skin-tight sweats and yelling at the paparazzi, "Fuck off, you dirty fucking pigs!" I love it when they talk dirty.

Miley

The money you gain is a type of compensation for all the hate on the internet and for the paparazzi. You can buy yourself a big house but you’re not able to leave it because as soon as you are out on the streets, its like you’re under fire.

-- Miley Cyrus

I guess it's true that we all have our problems. But I am pretty sure that she would rather keep hers than enjoy mine.

You got to love the part when she is running in her skin-tight sweats and yelling at the paparazzi, "Fuck off, you dirty fucking pigs!" I love it when they talk dirty.

Romney the Bully

On the day after President Obama makes some impressive civil rights history by endorsing gay marriage, we get reports of Republican candidate Mitt Romney bashing gays in high school. The most striking incident is the one in which "after teasing a gay student about his hair for a week, Romney attacked him, holding him down on the ground to cut his hair off while the boy cried for help.” Andrew Sullivan gives us an elaboration of that attack by one who says he considers himself a friend of Romney's, and who was a part of that attack.


_ _ _

“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it… because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job… clumps of hair taken off.” Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”

Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days… but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things." ...

“This was bullying supreme,” he said.

-- Andrew Sullivan's Dish

_ _ _

You understand that this probably will not hurt Romney's candidacy with respect to the Republican base. Indeed, it may even energize the more rabid members of that base of good old boys. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, will no doubt rhapsodize over it: "Well, well, I guess Romney really is a severe conservative, after all, all right!"

However, it could hurt Romney with the independents, the ones who will presumably decide the election. I would think that it is not too late for the Republicans to nominate a different candidate, but I have not come across the least suggestion that this move is under any consideration.

Romney the Bully

On the day after President Obama makes some impressive civil rights history by endorsing gay marriage, we get reports of Republican candidate Mitt Romney bashing gays in high school. The most striking incident is the one in which "after teasing a gay student about his hair for a week, Romney attacked him, holding him down on the ground to cut his hair off while the boy cried for help.” Andrew Sullivan gives us an elaboration of that attack by one who says he considers himself a friend of Romney's, and who was a part of that attack.


_ _ _

“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it… because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job… clumps of hair taken off.” Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”

Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days… but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things." ...

“This was bullying supreme,” he said.

-- Andrew Sullivan's Dish

_ _ _

You understand that this probably will not hurt Romney's candidacy with respect to the Republican base. Indeed, it may even energize the more rabid members of that base of good old boys. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, will no doubt rhapsodize over it: "Well, well, I guess Romney really is a severe conservative, after all, all right!"

However, it could hurt Romney with the independents, the ones who will presumably decide the election. I would think that it is not too late for the Republicans to nominate a different candidate, but I have not come across the least suggestion that this move is under any consideration.