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Category: evolution

The death of the invisible hand (job)

The death of the invisible hand (job)

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Speaking of metaphors, article by David Sloan Wilson. Some excerpts: “[Adam] Smith was critical of Mandeville and presented a more nuanced view of human nature in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), but modern economic and political discourse is not about nuance. Rational choice theory takes the invisible hand metaphor literally by trying to explain the length and breadth of human behavior on the basis of individual utility maximization, which is fancy talk for the narrow pursuit of self-interest.” “The…

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Gibbs on Haidt’s righteous mind

Gibbs on Haidt’s righteous mind

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From Gibbs’ Moral Development and Reality: “Haidt’s new synthesis leads to recognition of at least three serious limitations: descriptive inadequacy or negative skew; unwarranted exclusion or studied avoidance of prescriptive implications; and moral relativism” (33). He then goes into detail on those inadequacies. From the section on moral relativism: “Haidt’s (2012) sentiment that liberals and conservatives should share meals and narratives and ‘get along’ is helpful, but missing is any call for rational dialogue or moral progress. Nor did Haidt…

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Looking for the metanarrative of our lives

Looking for the metanarrative of our lives

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Excellent article by David Lane. Therein he goes into Edelman’s primary and higher-order consciousness. While acknowledging that natural selection has no purpose it is indeed ironic that we humans, with our self-aware higher consciousness that creates purpose, ended up at the top of the selection process. The downside of the latter is that it is a double-edged sword; it can make up stories that serve the purpose of giving us comfort but not be true. However it also has the…

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Raising Darwin’s consciousness

Raising Darwin’s consciousness

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A Scientific American interview with famed primatologist and evolutionary theorist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. “If we really want to raise Darwin’s consciousness we need to expand evolutionary perspectives to include the Darwinian selection pressures on mothers and on infants. So much of our human narrative is about selection pressures but, when you stop to think and parse the hypotheses, they’re really about selection pressures on males: hunting hypotheses or lethal intergroup conflict hypotheses to explain human brains. Well, does that mean…

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Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

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Open access book by Giorgio Griziotti is here. Technical book for you techies. The blurb: “Technological change is ridden with conflicts, bifurcations and unexpected developments. Neurocapitalism takes us on an extraordinarily original journey through the effects that cutting-edge technology has on cultural, anthropological, socio-economic and political dynamics. Today, neurocapitalism shapes the technological production of the commons, transforming them into tools for commercialization, automatic control, and crisis management. But all is not lost: in highlighting the growing role of General Intellect’s…

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Book discussion event on embodied cognition

Book discussion event on embodied cognition

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Our discussions all, to some extent, relate to cognition. An important area of inquiry concerns whether some form of physical embodiment is required for a brain to support cognition in general and the self-aware sort of cognition we humans possess. THE BOOK Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Please note, while the title includes “Philosophy,” we are not a philosophy group and the book and discussion will…

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Why did consciousness evolve?

Why did consciousness evolve?

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From David Barash, evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at University of Washington. “Brief explanatory excursion: it is a useful exercise to ask what brains are for. From an evolutionary perspective, brains evolved not simply to give us a more accurate view of the world, or merely to orchestrate our internal organs or coordinate our movements, or even our thoughts. Rather, brains exist because they maximise the reproductive success of the genes that helped create them and of the bodies…

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Gaps in our focused attention

Gaps in our focused attention

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Two papers released in the journal Neuron discuss these gaps, which happen 4 times every second. Hence the object of our focus only gets these quick snapshots and we have to piece them together to create the appearance of continual attention. The reason our focused attention is diverted so frequently is due to evolutionary selection pressures to remain vigilant to dangers in the environment around us. Thus any environmental distraction will interrupt our focus with this frequency. This reminds me…

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Homo deus

Homo deus

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Power Valued Over Truth Dear Ed and All, “We are the ones that create human nature by inculcating cooperation and care over selfishness and power.” The view you express, Ed, contesting Harari’s claim in Homo deus, seems to edge up closely to the “pre-modern” standard social science of model of human nature, i.e., that it is almost solely a product of culture, with no or minimal influence of naturally selected genes and very fancy naturally selected epigenetic mechanisms for gene…

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The evolutionary and present significance of reading

The evolutionary and present significance of reading

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In her new book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, author Maryanne Wolf explores how reading affects the brain and mind. What different effects result from consuming digital media rather than print media and long forms rather than tweets, posts, and other microcontent? In her excellent recent article, she says, Will new readers develop the more time-demanding cognitive processes nurtured by print-based mediums as they absorb and acquire new cognitive capacities emphasized by digital media? For example, will…

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