Curt Doolittle

Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

  • AUTISM MEANS 40% MORE BRAIN ACTIVITY AT REST. My mother, my grandmother, teacher

    http://scienceblog.com/70048/study-shows-autistic-brains-create-more-information-at-rest/YES. AUTISM MEANS 40% MORE BRAIN ACTIVITY AT REST.

    My mother, my grandmother, teachers, everyone would say “just relax and rest your mind”.

    I would say “um… I can’t shut it off. Ever.” It was so exasperating. I thought adults were incredibly stupid, with insipid advice.

    The only way to keep the machine happy is to work it to death. It’d drive me to exhaustion (and has) if I didn’t feed it something to work on.

    The internal world is like an enormous magnet that ONLY SOCIAL CONTACT is a counter.

    I love people. They’re anchors to reality.

    I wonder what it’s like for totally autistic people – they can never get out… ever. I have a lot of trouble getting in and out (Something my mother, Allora and Amanda were masters of.)

    But you can view fate as gift or curse. I can manage it most of the time, so I consider it a gift.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-31 17:16:00 UTC

  • ENVIRONMENT DOESN”T MATTER MUCH AT ALL –“The bad habit of assuming that anythin

    ENVIRONMENT DOESN”T MATTER MUCH AT ALL

    –“The bad habit of assuming that anything not classically genetic must be ‘environmental’ has blinkered behavioral geneticists (and those who interpret their findings) into the fool’s errand of looking for environmental effects for what may be randomness in developmental processes.”–

    NURTURE ONLY MATTER IN SO FAR AS YOU DON”T HARM YOUR KIDS. THATS THE EXTENT OF IT.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-31 10:27:00 UTC

  • SPHERES OF BEHAVIORAL ACCEPTABILITY (what we ignore and punish) In your imaginat

    SPHERES OF BEHAVIORAL ACCEPTABILITY

    (what we ignore and punish)

    In your imagination

    In your bathroom

    In your bedroom

    at your dining table

    In front of your mother

    In front of your neighborhood

    In front your city square.

    On national television

    In front of (your equivalent of) ‘the pope’

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 14:03:00 UTC

  • Over the past five or six years I’ve wondered how to measure the ability of huma

    Over the past five or six years I’ve wondered how to measure the ability of human beings to identify relations. We know that it’s hard work and there is a limit. We know that we must be able to construct those relations in a fairly short period of time. But, how do we measure it?

    I didn’t think it was possible. But now I think it might be.

    Sure, IQ is still a loose proxy. But it describes our relative differences, it does not tell us enough (that I am aware of) about how to weigh the different types of content other than verbal and mathematical. While I don’t discount empathic intelligence, I dont think it tells us much of value, about our minds, even if it’s utilitarian in practice.

    The question I’m struggling with is, that given our sort of fascination with ideal types, and given the clear necessity for logics (instrumentation) and our clear inability to think in increasingly complex numbers of dimensions without the help of cartesian or three dimensional models, and given our need to name functions (sets of operations) there is some sort of limit that I cannot put my arms quite around. But I am fairly certain if I struggle with that I will be able to eventually answer.

    We have IQ, and response time. We know that it only takes about 300 words to articulate all human experiences. We know that we can load terms, phrases, sentences, explanations and narratives, almost infinitely. But we also know that at some point we lose the ability to reconstruct or deconstruct those terms. So how do we measure that?

    What is the objective, experiential difference between concepts?

    I know that figuring out that property was the sort of unit of commensurability helps get to a solution. But what is that solution?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 09:44:00 UTC

  • AND DISCIPLINES – EXCEPT AT THE MARGINS IT’S PREFERENCE Let us assume that the h

    http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/05/the-low-percentage-of-women-earning-phds-in-philosophy.htmlGENDERS AND DISCIPLINES – EXCEPT AT THE MARGINS IT’S PREFERENCE

    Let us assume that the human brain requires N amount of positive stimulation to remain in a state of calm, or rather, constant reward from exposure to stimuli. (it does).

    Lets assume that humans have M{} possible forms of stimulation. (we do).

    Lets assume that males have M{}-Mx{} fewer forms of stimulation available to them. (They do.)

    Lets assume that x{} forms of stimulation consist of empathic experiences. (they do)

    That would, alone, without any further requirement, produce greater specialization in abstractions in males, than females.

    We all start out female. THE MALE BRAIN IS DAMAGED IN UTERO TO PRODUCE THIS OUTCOME: SPECIALIZATION.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 11:59:00 UTC

  • “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the followi

    “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the following classes:

    1. Communal Sharing,

    2. Authority Ranking,

    3. Equality Matching,

    4. Market Pricing / Rational Legal.

    The last of these is the framework usually used by libertarians.”

    The reason we use it, is because, in a complex division of labor, greater than the family, extended family, or village, it is the only one in which we can be relatively certain that we are not free riding or rent seeking.

    There is simply no other combination of technologies that are available to us. NONE. Equality is impossible except among family members.

    Even if it were technically possible, I am not even sure it is desirable.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 11:04:00 UTC

  • WHAT ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING TO MAKE CHILDREN MENTALLY UNSTABLE? —“…kids are s

    WHAT ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING TO MAKE CHILDREN MENTALLY UNSTABLE?

    —“…kids are so sophisticated now but also so stressed out. She said students suffering from depression and anxiety are at high risk for drug use, and suicide rates nationwide are climbing.”–

    The suburban heroin user is white. The average age of first use is 18.

    One-third of those surveyed starting using it after being addicted to or misusing prescription pain pills such as OxyContin or Vicodin.

    More than 75 percent of respondents had a concurrent mental health condition, such as depression, ADHD or bipolar disorder, and used heroin to self-medicate.

    Two-thirds of those surveyed displayed “sensation-seeking behaviors,” which researchers translated to mean they got a thrill out of driving to the West Side of Chicago to buy heroin without getting caught.

    Users have little knowledge about heroin when they first try it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 13:41:00 UTC

  • We humans are notoriously challenged with multi-dimensional problems. We evolved

    We humans are notoriously challenged with multi-dimensional problems. We evolved to run to intercept something running from us, and avoid something running at us – and we further evolved, to throw a rock, spear or arrow at something moving in relation to us. That is a very complex calculation to perform.

    It’s pretty interesting to go through the analysis of why we can only visualize three to five things, and only really remember five to seven, without hard work and mastering certain tricks.

    Our emotions for example seem very complex to us, but they ‘re constructed by as few as three different axis.

    Our personalities probably consist of no more than five or six major determinants, although numbers of properties is often discussed in the thirties.

    So if the number of axis that affect our philosophy is more than two or three it’s no wonder that we have trouble mentally reconciling them. Because it’s possible that we cannot usefully reduce these axis any further.

    But we try anyway. We strive for the simplistic ideal type at all times. But we fail. We sometimes under pressure consider a spectrum. And at others under confusion consider two or three axis (say, like the Nolan chart). But beyond the three dimensional we tend to fail.

    AXIS 1 (mind)

    [reality]

    sensation

    memory

    perception (awareness? awareness of change in state?)

    searching

    imagination

    AXIS 3 (instrumentation)

    identity (categorizing, naming – including numbering)

    logic (language of justification, argument or maybe persuasion?).

    relation (mathematics: logic of constant relations – ie: axiomatic)

    causality (physics: logic of constant causal relations – ie:determinism)

    organization (economics: logic of inconstant relations)

    AXIS 3 (truth)

    inconsistency

    internal consistency

    external consistency (correspondence)

    truth (internal and external correspondence)

    identity

    AXIS 4 (action and population)

    observation (accretion)

    action (choice)

    cooperation. (contract)

    spontaneous cooperation (market)

    unconscious cooperation (metaphysical value judgements)

    AXIS 5 (incentive)

    ignorance

    preference

    priority

    obligation

    necessity

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 11:18:00 UTC

  • Why does the UK demonstrate lower trust than the USA, but people in the UK *SAY

    Why does the UK demonstrate lower trust than the USA, but people in the UK *SAY IN SURVEYS* that they have higher trust.

    I think there are better tests of trust in every country: banking policy and regulation.

    The more. The less.

    But I can’t find any papers on Banking policy trust levels in SSRN.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-15 07:36:00 UTC

  • POLITICAL BIASES AS REFLECTIONS OF THE VALUE OF THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS. Just lik

    POLITICAL BIASES AS REFLECTIONS OF THE VALUE OF THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS.

    Just like Engineers and Creatives think in different universes, libertarians and communalists think in different universes.

    For a libertarian (most of whom are very bright) other people’s opinions and knowledge aren’t very useful. Neither are social rewards. Or signals.

    For a communalist, (most of whom are around average) other people’s opinions and knowledge, are comforting, helpful, useful and necessary.

    This difference in the perception of the value of others thinking, and therefore the SIGNAL value of the approval of others, explains the political biases of the different groups.

    Likewise the dunning-kreuger curve demonstrates why the very lowest classes feel that the world actively conspires against them, because in fact, their opinions, approval, signals aren’t of any value except to satisfy the confirmation bias of peers as a defense against self loathing.

    We seem to think these differences are choices.

    They aren’t. They’re incentives. They’re logical. They’re necessary.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-14 17:04:00 UTC