Humans Still Evolving

To my great surprise, I only recently learned that the consensus among scientists was that humans had ceased evolving more than fifty thousand years ago. They held that natural selection hasd't come into play since then and that our modern skulls houses Stone Age minds.


But closer observation of the genetic material of the last ten thousand years now seem to show that instead, there's rather been a growth, an avalanche of evolutionary changes in the human body during that recent period and apparently the mutations accelerate as we speak.


The brain, digestive system, lifespan, immunity, sperm production and bones, some two thousand mutations have been identified and traced back. We are differenciating under a wide diversity of environments, the variations in social condition, lifestyle, stress levels, pollution, and the intensification of some of these factors that comes with population growth, all at a recently unsuspected speed.

What will we be in five hundred years?


Learn more from DiscoverMagazine.

Converting First Impressions

From PhysOrg.com:

Neuroscientists at New York University and Harvard University have identified the neural systems involved in forming first impressions of others. The findings, which show how we encode social information and then evaluate it in making these initial judgments, are reported in the most recent issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

...

The neuroimaging results showed significant activity in two regions of the brain during the encoding of impression-relevant information. The first, the amygdala, is a small structure in the medial temporal lobe that previously has been linked to emotional learning about inanimate objects, as well as social evaluations based on trust or race group. The second, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), has been linked to economic decision-making and assigning subjective value to rewards. In the Nature Neuroscience study, these parts of the brain, which are implicated in value processing in a number of domains, showed increased activity when encoding information that was consistent with the impression.

Think Fast, A Vital Ability

In the brain, first impressions seem to be linked to multiple functional areas: to an emotional learning enabler, to the system used in building a sense of social rewards and values, and to how we estimate winning compatibility with our peers. The original first few seconds imprint can then initiate a self-confirming loop of likes or dislikes that will usually stick to us. Specially if corroborated by further information.

But then again, these first impressions can be shattered, switched, eroded or mutated. A friendship of forty years, I started with a strong antipathy; another long-time friend I did not really trust for a long while.

More information, intuition, effort, a revelation or even chance can convert a first impression. It happens. Both ways, from right to wrong and from mistaken to pertinent. The relative reliability and success of this arrangement though, seem to show that we are more often right than we are wrong, fast judgement is probably a vital ability.

The success of this strategy however also might explain why some first impression will never be convertible. Why some people will not be able to change their mind, adopt a different view, reconsider a relationship or the nature of some content. With fast (or lazy) jugments the flexibility seems to be lost.

Hence the hard-core devots, irreductible fanatists and even suicide-cultists.

Benevolent Design

Evil proven. Maybe more than an indifferent universe.

It is fearsome. And it somewhat legitimizes this need to fantasize on an imaginary benevolent designer. But it is now safe to say that observations and measurements have shown no trace of such benevolence in the known universe.

Other than for small occasional "pockets of luck", this is a dangerous place.

Supernatural

Supernatural faith-based religions create undue fear and worries in the minds of children and adults about things that don't exist. It redirects time, money, resources and people wanting to do good into useless endeavours. It promotes magical and superstitious thinking. It gives respect and credence to religious leaders for no good reason - and often with terrible results.

From http://conversationalatheist.com/

Fear, worries, time, money, resources, useless endeavours - all soaked in good intention salsa (from dulce to picante).

That's what one has to invest in order to adhere to irrational views.

My Pretension

Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.

Bre Pettis and Kio Stark's "Cult of Done manifesto".

So let's pretend that I'm a human animal, bent on science and philosophy, an artist and a curious observer of both inside and outside realities.

That's what I say I am.

Learning From Books

Learning From Books, originally uploaded by me.

My advice at this point in time:

Learn from as many books as possible. When learning is to come from books, make sure there are enough in your library. If learning is to come through the entertainment you get from books, read multiple tales from different authors to build as many angles as possible.

Singularities

Singularity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Singularity may refer to any of a variety of concepts.

Mathematics:
Mathematical singularity, a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined

In complex analysis:
Essential singularity, a singularity near which a function exhibits extreme behavior
Isolated singularity, a mathematical singularity that has no other singularities close to it
Movable singularity, a concept in singularity theory
Removable singularity, a point at which a function is not defined but at which it can be so defined that it is continuous at the singularity

In algebraic geometry:
Singular point of an algebraic variety, a point where an algebraic variety is not locally flat
Rational singularity, a concept in singularity theory
Singularity theory, which deals with these concepts

Science:
Gravitational singularity, a point in spacetime in which gravitational forces cause matter to have an infinite density and zero volume
Mechanical singularity, a position or configuration of a mechanism or a machine where the subsequent behaviour cannot be predicted
Prandtl-Glauert singularity, the point at which a sudden drop in air pressure occurs
Singularity (climate), a weather phenomenon associated with a specific calendar date
Technological singularity, a theoretical point in the development of a technological civilization
Van Hove singularity in the density of states of a material

Singularity is an interesting concept in a universe where things are
generally self-similar and continuous (as part of a continuum).
Singularities also happen in one's life. A birth, a tragic loss, a very
close call with death, a brush with mental illness, something or an event that changes the rules for ever.

Bad News

Intermediate Ends Of The World

When I die it will be the end of the world as far as I'm concerned - and since I don't believe I'm the habitat of something "higher" than me, that'll be that. For most of us and most of our descendants' descendants, it will be the same, a private end of the world.

There is also a probability that the human civilization will exterminate itself, and that catastrophic change might happen so relatively quickly that people will be witness to it. That's another possible intermediate end of the known civilized world.

Then there's the chance an asteroid hits our planet to smithereens, in which case we would all live through an end of the earthly world. And if none of the above occur, the following clip illustrates what's most likely to happen as far as a galactic end of the world.

Then later, something might endanger our local cluster of galaxies either ripping the fabric of the universe, or having it's space filled with neighboring clusters, as the heading picture (educated simulation) of clusters of clusters suggests.

An ultimate End Of The World? of course! One day - a freeze, a crunch, no one is yet certain. But all seems to indicate that fatal entropy will win. Until then let's just forget about the many religious justice scare tactics and expected judgement days, and relax. Let's consider instead and keep busy with our own peremptionality.

A.R.T.

Making or doing art

A fabricated object or behavior loaded with intent.

Intent to share, communicate, intervene, interfere, entertain or otherwise impact fellow humans.

For the artist it is a statement. The object or performance is infused with his intent. The viewer is touched and reacts, feels and interpret its effects and forget, remembers or integrates the experience. Not much need be done for art to be made. In the above picture (taken by somenone else) I just added some tint and texture and an english word. Other artists will put an ordinary object out of context or under a different light. Or highlight a pattern or behave in special ways... Art can be simple or flourish in sophisticated intricacies and technical achievements. And it is something we human animals do to each other to enjoy or enlighten ourselves on our ephemeral condition. And we are now at a point in our evolution where art has become vital.

Basic Cosmological Knowledge

This is the basic knowledge about the universe that should underlie all theological and philosophical speculations and assumptions. Please push the Play button.



And this explains the method by which knowledge such as the above is acquired, verified, built upon.

For more vids on scientific knowledge, try this . Or watch the following clip on what "life" really is.

The Table's End

Where does the table effectively end?

Infinitesimally, atoms of solid wood turn into flowing atoms of air while from my point of view, there is a surface of solid wood. But is there?

We know that however polished that surface is, if you look close enough, it is rough and ragged. And at the atomic level, there are places that are wood and places that are not. There's even a level of uncertainty on what is part of the table and what, is part of the room's air.

We also know that this solid wood surface is constantly being modified by traveling molecules and electromagnetic bombardments and other contacts with solid objects. And that atoms and molecules of the table are constantly let loose from the solid. We also know that some particles can even go through that solid wood table.

What's interesting it that there is no exact frontier between the table and the air, even though from my point of view, there seems to be one. Then my assuming that there is a trustable interface between solid and gaseous would be "close enough for rock and roll".

So for most of us, most of the time, approximate assumptions are more than enough for functional living. If it wasn't for challenges and curiosity.

Justice

There will be justice

Bad people get punished.
You, however, will be forgiven.

From The American Cargo Cult.
Get the rest here

Reading, Evocation and Simulaton

Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest

A new brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to "get lost" in a good book — suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life.

Does that mean that stories use the same brain areas as real-life?

Or that what we conceive to be real-life is really happening in the same brain areas as fiction but with the added benefit or sensorial input? Both seem to operate in the same fashion. A friend who studies lucid dreaming also expects the similar brain areas to fire up when a dreamer acquires lucidity.

Real-life worldviews are of the same substance as more or less educated stories?

That would render myths, legends, fallacies, and other imaginary constructions indistinguishable from evidence-supported hypothesis.

Faith & Consequences

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.

One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room.

She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cut-glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom! When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat.

The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist. 'Miss Beatrice', he said, 'I wonder if you would tell me about this?' pointing to the bowl.

'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the Park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease.

Do you know I haven't had the flu all winter.'

Improbabilities

What happens happened because it was the most probable thing to happen then. Most of the time.

The next now for most average folks is a highly probable, predictable, expected moment, life that continues. Until for some, the unexpectedly improbable outside force strikes directly and life takes a turn. But the surprise doen't always come from beyond.

Errors, mistakes, bad choices and other wrong moves are examples of points where we ourselves are the cause of an unexpected turn of event. Which of course doesn't exclude the improbable - an erroneous assumption leading to real discovery for instance, or a bad turn in an alley... Even the highly improbable can happen - News Of The Weird is full of such demonstrations.

Causality?

My point: In view of the chaotic circumstances of the universe at the time, I'd dare to say that the emergence of life and subsequent self-aware beings resulted from a chain of these highly improbable events. If you consider that reality, at our level, is the gazillion nano-to-mega events required to maintain the consistency of matter, with such numbers improbable things are bound to happen.

But they just rarely do, sitting at the edges of the Bell curve as they are.