All posts by Deborah Binder

If Only Oceans were like the US

The Environment

I’ve been thinking about  ocean acidification,  the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans due to global warming.  What to do? Last post considered the possibility of   adding iron in the ocean to stimulate phytoplankton, which consume CO2 and ultimately reduce acidification. In theory.

Risky. All sorts of unknown unknowns. Likely unintended consequences.

To which my first thought is: well, that’s life. Not acting is risky too.

The problem with the oceans is that they’re all connected. So how to experiment in one area with triggering a ripple (hah!) effect? Can areas of experimentation be confined? Like adding iron in a sea where natural barriers prevent, or minimize, spread?

That’s the idea of the US: states as centers of experimentation. If an experiment works, other states will copy it. If not, well at least the damage is contained to Missouri.

Status Equality as a Policy Objective: When is Enough Enough?

Explorations Outside the Box, Politics and Economics

For the sake of argument, I’m reducing the value of social status to its effect on widening the “field of eligibles” – that is, increasing the quality and quantity of potential mates.  When in mate-seeking mode, we look around to see who’s available and who we think we can attract. Social comparison is the game. Inequality of mating opportunities is built into this game.   Even if everyone were more or less the same on wide range of characteristics, the participants in the game would find ways to make finer discriminations. So there will status hierarchies.

(No, this isn’t a justification of extreme income or wealth inequality.)

I’m  leading to questions about what should we want of society and government.  If there’s a solid safety net (basic security for all: housing, nutrition, health care, and education), is that good enough? Or should government policy seek to promote a flatter status hierarchy, where status differences are smaller in society at large?

The guaranteed goods and services  would be pretty much the same under either policy objective: housing, nutrition, healthcare, and education. The difference would be in determining how much is enough.  Given the propensity of humans to sort themselves by status,  I  suspect that serious policies to minimize status differences would  be defeated by more intense status competition within the collectivity and a continual raising of the status bar.

 

 

 

Status and Being Better Off than Our Parents

Explorations Outside the Box, Politics and Economics

Should every generation be “better off” than the previous generation? What does “better off” mean?

Looking only at the middle class and above, I’m assuming recent generations have been able to meet their core needs (sufficient housing, nutrition, healthcare, and education), so what should the current middle class be getting to reflect that they’re doing better than their parents? What I would classify as cool stuff:  things like bigger houses, fancier gadgets, more exciting vacations.   In other words, goods, services, and experiences that serve as markers of status.

Simplifying a bit, the point of status is to attract and keep mates. Higher status gives you more to choose from and greater commitment from those who have chosen you. When it comes to competition for mates, being better off than your parents isn’t much of a draw –  being better than the current competition is.

 

 

Anthropologists and Therapists

Explorations Outside the Box

Anthropologists scramble to show that the Other’s beliefs aren’t irrational – they make sense and do good explanatory work … in context.

Therapists labor to point out the irrationality of beliefs – that they do not obey strict rules of logic or evidence.

Explanations are goal-directed actions and attempts to capture the truth. So one question is: what are anthropologists and therapists trying to accomplish with their assertions?

Why is this Truth emphasized, and not that Truth?

Those aren’t Beliefs…They’re Intuitions

Explorations Outside the Box

Explicit beliefs are mostly attempts to justify or explain an intuition. Intuitions are the result of implicit processes in our mental basements. Explicit beliefs are interpretations of intuitions – for the benefit of an audience (anthropologist, psychologist, self).

Reference:

Boyer P (2001). Religion Explained. The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought London: Random House & New York: Perseus.

Religion Explained

Explorations Outside the Box

If a proposition taps into our neurocognitive proclivities, it’s likely to be vivid, intuitive, plausible, and relatively easy to remember.  The idea that there are weird but still person-like supernatural agents, who care about what we do, is one such proposition. Propositions that hit on all the cylinders of motivation and explanatory bias provide an adaptive edge. Religion explained, per Pascal Boyer.

Reference:

Boyer P (2001). Religion Explained. The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought London: Random House & New York: Perseus.

Climate Change and the Oceans

Scientific Encounters, The Environment

Oceans are my biggest worry. Covering 70% of the earth’s surface, oceans absorb a huge amount of CO2.  A few chemical processes later and we have ocean acidification, scourge of coral reefs and who knows what else.  We’re not sure what else, but such quick change will surely challenge the capacity of sea life to adapt. Evolution’s not used to working on such short  time scales.

So what are the options (in addition to doing whatever to reduce GHGs and mitigate climate change)?

We have geoengineering – basically adding stuff to the oceans to increase pH, reducing acidification.  Like adding iron to stimulate phytoplankton, which consume CO2. Problem is, the risks are immense. As  Zhang et al (2014) put it:

“Less is known of the oceans than the far side of the Moon. Initiating a change in the basic lowest level food web member (the plankton) will certainly have impacts throughout the whole ecology of the ocean.”

And we don’t know what that impact would be. Which is not to say not to try…but to be very, very careful.

What else? Stay tuned.

Reference:

Zhang Z, Moore JC, Huisingh D, Zhao Y, Review of Geoengineering Approaches to Mitigating Climate Change, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.09.076.

 

Awareness, Truth, and Attachment

Explorations Outside the Box

I once belonged to a cult where awareness, non-attachment and being present were highly valued and practiced. Being aware didn’t protect against craziness, though:  cult members observed the panorama as it unfolded in the moment and yet remained deluded fools who believed in guardian angels and the prophetic powers of their leader.

What is the relationship between awareness and insight?

Or for that matter, awareness and reality?

Or for that matter, awareness and non-attachment?

Some would say that “true” or otherwise higher awareness  would definitely confer insight, seeing things as they are, and non-attachment. I’m not so sure myself.

 

Self-Awareness and Metacognition: Not Enough to Avoid Regrets

Explorations Outside the Box, Observing Mindfulness, Scientific Encounters

It would seem that awareness is related to what psychologists call “metacognition”. Metacognition is not one thing. The metacognitive system is composed of distinct anatomical and functional parts. So metacognition encompasses a lot of different things, including declarative knowledge about oneself, as well as anticipatory and emergent self-awareness – meaning anticipating and monitoring one’s environment, responses and behavior as the world unfolds.

Metacognitive processes do not need to be fully conscious. They include an unarticulated knowingness or emotional sense about oneself in specific situations that affects planning/preparation and results in ongoing self-regulation (Efklides 2006).  Interestingly, general self-knowledge is not correlated with the ability to accurately anticipate or monitor/adjust/correct behavior in specific situations (O’Keefe et al 2007).

Self-awareness doesn’t mean explicit or focal attention with the “self” as its object. It can inhabit the edges. It can be a sense or a knowingness. Can we be knowing, aware, but wrong? I ask because some people may assume that awareness confers accurate understanding, or at the very least is a necessary condition of accurate understanding.

Does it?

References:

Efklides, Anastasia. (2006). Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive experiences tell us about the learning process? Educational Research Review, 1(1), 3-14. 

O’Keeffe F, Dockree P, Moloney P, Carton S, Robertson IH (2007) Awareness of deficits in traumatic brain injury: a multidimensional approach to assessing metacognitive knowledge and online-awareness. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 13(1):38-49.

Higher Awareness, Higher Consciousness, or What

Explorations Outside the Box, Observing Mindfulness

People sometimes speak of “awareness”as if it were a higher state of consciousness.  But awareness can be dim, or soft, or vague. The brain is “aware” of a lot of things that “we” are unconscious of. To decide and to act requires awareness “on some level”.

Is higher awareness  possible? That is, awareness that is more than an attentional spotlight and through which “one is able to gain the insight that leads to the end of attachment.”

If one acquires insight and loses attachment in conjunction with years of meditative practice, how much credit goes to the awareness and how much to the teachings that promote a specific worldview?

Quote from: http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/community/showthread.php/562-Awareness-mindfulness-and-consciousness-101