SPSP 2012

Time to bring some heroes down to ground.

Just Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Relative

When a good man and a good woman
Can't find the good in each other
Then a good man and a good woman
Will bring out the worst in the other
The bad in each other

Lab Rats that can Create their own Brain Stimulation Levers

For some weird reason, I think I was dreaming about lab rats pressing on levers to electrically stimulate their brains' pleasure centres, so while lazily rolling in bed before I got up today, I was thinking that's how humans are basically behaving as our world gets more and more technologically complex.

With insights from science allowing us to reduce huge, complicated and dynamic systems into their simple causes and effects, we're able to know what causes what to a very accurate degree. We know what drives us at the deepest level. We're not that different from animals. From the studies of laboratory animals with electric nodes wired up to the pleasure centres in their brains, it was found that the electrical stimulus was reinforcing and can override behaviour. Laboratory animals will press a lever at high rates (> 6,000 times per hour) to deliver brief stimulation pulses to brain regions. The reinforcement from direct electrical activation of this reward substrate is more potent than other rewards, such as food or water. The potency of this electrical stimulation was most dramatically shown in a classic experiment where the animal subjects suffered self-imposed starvation when forced to make a choice between obtaining food and water or electrical brain stimulation (Routtenberg & Lindy, 1965). The second distinct feature of reward from electrical brain stimulation is the lack of satiation; animals generally press to stimulate continuously, taking only brief breaks. These two features - super-potent reward and lack of satiation - are important characteristics of direct activation of brain reward mechanisms.

Unfortunately in this sense, I suppose, science and technology co-exist and advance each other accordingly. Every new item on the market is sold to reproduce that kick from activating our brain reward mechanisms and promises, in fancy marketing language, to give us enhanced kicks. These include nifty new gadgets and websites promising entertainment that suck us into hours of unproductive, addictive fun. But this is not limited to technological products - the market reflects peoples' demand for novel and better ways to activate their brain reward mechanisms (obviously), and with that we see flashier cars, harder drinks, trendier clothes, swankier clubs, bigger brands, super-sweet foods, etc. These things do not satiate us, and they replace our otherwise normal behaviours.

Whatever is "better", on average, ultimately boils down to what activates those brain reward mechanisms more and faster, and people are willing to pay good money for it. An immediate distinction between now and the past is that, with our advances in ideas and technology, we're getting more and more capable of delivering those quick-reward ends compared to other periods in our history. We've become laboratory rats who are capable of creating our own fancy brain stimulation levers, and we're psychotically pressing them. In contrast, a caveman was capable of only activating his pleasure centres by doing the menial but traditionally sound things that led to good feelings - seeking friendships, taking care of relatives, falling in love, communicating with others, finding food to eat, etc. These days, who needs such longwinded activities? They take too long before they lead us to the promised land.

A Cold, Hard (and Amoral) Look at Leadership

When properly looked at, natural leadership occurs when a dominant person acts in his/her own self-interest and, in the process, enables followers to benefit from his/her self-serving behaviour. In ancestral times, as a silly and simple but relevant example, perhaps it was a man who knew where the watering hole was, and wanted to get there anyway. Followers who were less competent in finding it could help him carry his goods while he led them there. This natural process selects for competent, capable leaders who could articulate to followers how, by being subservient and giving up some autonomy and self-interest, they could gain something from his capabilities. Leadership and followership evolved because it was an efficient process that eventually led to a net advantage for whole groups over the course of social history, both human and animal.

Servant leadership is the idea that leaders should want first and foremost to serve followers and are held accountable by the people the leader governs, in pure altruistic fashion. Like many other modern good-to-haves, servant leadership is unlikely to have emerged simply from rational thought alone - its formulation was forged from a drastic need to deal with the fact that the influential ability of leaders meant that leaders could also get away with many dastardly things. The evolution of leadership wouldn't be complete without a counter from followers, who adapted by evolving emotions that made them upset, angry, cheated and disgusted when leaders become corrupt. Servant leadership is a socially constructed dynamic that actively suppresses the tendency of leaders to put their own interests ahead of their followers' interests.

But just as much as we have those emotions acting as alarms to warn us against being too unfairly taken advantage of, people far and wide still see confidence, dominance, assertiveness and aggression as virtues in leaders. When we can potentially see these traits as attractive in a leader, we allow him or her to get away with doing whatever it takes to "get shit done." A tasteful mix of these characteristics in a person makes him or her charismatic, and we often forgive charismatic people for taking a little more than their fair share of the pie.

Because at heart, the propeling force of leadership is self-interest. Lots of it. A person wouldn't last as a leader without it, and simply bestowing a fancy title on anybody doesn't make the person a sustainable leader. This is the reason why a student studying politics doesn't necessarily become a politician after that; governors, CEOs, directors, pastors and generals are a self-selecting lot and, for better or worse, their immense, self-aggrandising belief in the value of their own ideas, goals and needs over others' persistently drives their rise to the top.

Animals

On Evolutionary Explanations of Restrictive Eating Disorders, and the Value of Radical Ideas

My supervisory professors have been missing in action the past 2-3 days, so I've had more time to turn my attention to themes and research that I'm quite interested in.

One of the fascinating topics I did some reading on is restrictive eating disorders (i.e. anorexia and bulimia) from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary theory posits that every psychological, behavioural and physical trait expressed by an organism was selected for by aiding the organism in its survival and/or reproduction, and therefore had a functional purpose for existing at some point in evolutionary time. A trait could never exist if the environment was not conducive for its expression (i.e. hinders the organism in survival or reproduction).

By this logic, it might therefore be reasonably assumed (however inconceivably) that there could have been some adaptive function for the existence of anorexia and bulimia at some point in our evolutionary history. They are annoyances in our modern world because there could be a mismatch between its usefulness in the ancestral past and the environment today.

There are at least five major evolutionary explanations for restrictive eating disorders, each with its own flaws, as outlined by Dr Igor Kardum and colleagues from the University of Rijeka in a 2008 paper reviewing evolutionary accounts of anorexia and bulimia, namely (1) the reproduction suppression hypothesis (Wasser & Barash, 1983), (2) the model of parental manipulation (Voland & Voland, 1989), (3) the sexual competition hypothesis (Abed, 1998), (4) the adapted to flee from famine hypothesis (Guisinger, 2003), and (5) the combined concepts of 'social attention holding power' and the 'need to belong' (Gatward, 2007).

The most palatable (and, thus, conventional and popular) idea tends to revolve around competition among females catalysed by the media (sexual competition hypothesis). It is the notion that in wealthier societies, to be able to resist food is seen as a mark of having high status, while in poorer societies, to be able to get food is conversely the indicator of high status; thus anorexia is more prevalent in modernised societies while relatively larger-sized females are exemplified as beautiful. This is propagated via media imagery.

I will not go into detail with all the ideas as it can get rather technical, but in particular I wanted to point out two radical ideas put forth that, while still works-in-progress, were really interesting and reflective of creative, convention-defying attempts to think of new ways to consider this issue.

In particular, I thought Voland and Voland's (1989) model of parental manipulation interestingly attempts to account for why eating disorders tended to happen more with wealthier, higher class individuals. This model draws on kin selection theory and asserts that anorexia may be adaptive (useful) insofar as it increases an anorexic's helping behaviour to her own kin's survival and reproduction while suppressing her own reproductive success (because anorexia leads to a decline in fertility). Non-evolutionary research in the 70s showed that members of anorexic families possessed mutually overprotective attitudes, and anorexic individuals tended to worry constantly about the well-being of their families. In the ancestral past when families were larger, anorexic female helpers could suppress their own reproduction and therefore divert their own resources towards helping collateral kin, leading to greater inclusive fitness (genes belonging to family members). This sets the precedent for some interesting speculations. The model of parental manipulation suggests that anorexia is actually somehow exacerbated by parental influence. Many studies report significant correlations between dominant and overprotective mothers and the probability of anorexic reactions of their daughters. Anorexia reduces a female's fertility and hinders her from bearing additional offspring. Additionally, when a daughter is overprotected and dominated by her mother, her ability to find a mate is also reduced. In wealthy families, males are the more valuable sex as they have the resources to attain more mates. By inducing anorexia (thereby restricting the reproduction of daughters and also reducing their food intake), especially for families in higher societal strata and class, parents can then concentrate investment potential towards sons, who in wealthier families have higher reproductive value.

The next radical idea is Gatward's (2007) combined concepts of 'social attention holding power' and 'the need to belong'. 'Social attention holding power' is defined as an individual's ability to hold attention and gain investment from other members of the group, and this concept is closely related to the degree to which a person feels in control. Naturally, higher status individuals hold more social attention in their group and feel more in control. The need for belonging to a group is a fundamental human need, as ancestors who did not belong to any group were unlikely to survive for long in the harsher environments of the past. Because survival depended on belonging to a group, people had to compete for resources and this competition could lead to exclusion, if one wasn't careful. Anorexia might therefore have been adaptive in the past to prevent competition for food and resources, as well as compete in a more nuanced manner for status (a reference to the more conventional sexual competition hypothesis outlined above), thereby promoting group harmony and reducing the likelihood that one might get expelled. I would personally go on to speculate that in our modern society (essentially functioning and subconsciously perceived as a really large group), nobody feels like the highest status female who doesn't need to conform to restrictive eating disorder, because there is an implicit assumption that the highest status female is the one they see artificially created by the media. So everyone else who feels subordinate will increase her tendency to engage in restrictive eating disorder, an adaptation brought on by the need to maintain the large group's social harmony.


These are certainly radical theories that need to withstand more empirical testing, but reading about them excites me because they represent interesting attempts to get away from more conventional and acceptable ideas that do not necessarily get us very far, as evidenced by the fact that many extant theories on the causes of eating disorders still have ambiguities and gaps. Of course, there has to be a deal of initial plausibility, lacking which we would just think the idea is quack. But science is ultimately pushed by great thinkers with ground-breaking insights.

On a concluding note, the authors of the review paper highlight one consistent element found among all proposed evolutionary theories of restrictive eating disorders - response to threat. All the major evolutionary explanations can be reasoned as a form of response to threat (to survival and/or reproduction) that leads people (especially females) to develop symptoms of eating disorders. This independently corroborates research linking eating disorders with feelings of insecurity and need for control.

Circumventing Being Challenged

I was reading a very humorously written article titled Bullshitting: Lessons From the Masters. 6 "bullshitting techniques" were identified by the author, and I thought points 3 and 4 were fascinating in and of themselves, regardless whether in this context of bullshitting or not:

3. Act arrogant - keep it up. Although arrogance might seem to work against you by offending people, it is the supreme intimidation technique - people are readily cowed when someone acts like he is better, smarter, more powerful than they are (ergo, the Donald Trump phenomenon). The only danger is if you act modestly or question yourself, because people WILL attack weakness. In fact, even when you are being arrested (as in Stanford's case), attack your accusers.

4. Claim esoteric knowledge or techniques. It doesn't matter if the formula you use to explain your success makes no sense - people aren't secure enough to challenge something they can't understand. In fact, it pays to make the secret to your success as incomprehensible as possible while linking it to something beyond questioning, like say relativity, quantum physics, evolution or, for the old fashioned, God.

Ideal Selves and Real Selves

I've always been fascinated with the very abstract, psychoanalytical concept of having a real self and an ideal self.

(While my more rigorous, cognitive side scoffs at me buying into such 'fluffy' concepts, another side that appeals to intuition tells me that the brilliant psychoanalyst Karen Horney had hit on an important subconscious concept (there - my use of the 'cognitive side' versus the 'intuitive side' to describe myself betrays this). Because how can something "else" tell "me" something; isn't that something "else" a part of "me" as well? And indeed, perhaps the use of the contemporarily established fluffy term "self" is shorthand for different mental modules or subroutines, each competing for a place in the consciousness, like a TV screen allowing only one channel to come to the fore.)

Anyway! I think a condition of human nature is that we create ideal selves that our real selves aspire to. But our wellbeing depends on the nature of that ideal, external, aspirational self. As Karen Horney suggests, in the instance of lying or being hypocritical, a false self is created. When a person creates a false self, the gap widens between who he is and who he can be or wants to be. Eventually, he can lose touch with his real self, which sets the stage for neurosis to develop, thereby affecting both his mental and physical health.

Resolutions for Success

I'm not big on new year resolutions (and "inspirational" internet images), but I don't disagree with much of this and this should provide some ideas for the resolution-inclined!

Case in Point

A reluctant smoker with an unlit cigarette in hand is more likely to smoke if you hold up a light for him, rather than if you only offered just a cold, unlit lighter.

NYE 2011

One of the best New Year's Eve celebrations by far. You know you're in for a treat when the $400+ room you've booked at M Hotel becomes upgraded to a suite at the top floor.

Those are awesome speakers linked up to a frickin' Bose sound system!

This - Maotai Yingbin - was the perfect killing machine.

But guns don't kill people - people do. Especially when Angie gets hold of the bottle!

Isaac very gamely gets soaked.

All the finished booze.



Thank goodness for photos, preserving memories that most of us couldn't remember the next day!

Have yourself a happy new year and a blessed 2012!

Now, or Never

The frames have changed, the lenses suddenly different. My head is a vortex, I'm shaken at the core. This paradigm shift keeps my mind sickeningly awake, yet with insatiable clarity. My ignorance is glaring in the light. Does it take a wrong to do right?

"The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see."
- James Baldwin

A Man

"A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him — woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things — a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds — engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn’t matter what his job is, because if a man doesn’t like his job, he gets a new one.

A man can speak to dogs.

A man listens, and that’s how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It’s not that he must. It’s that he can.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.
A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.
Style — a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It’s a set of rules.

A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.
Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.

A man doesn’t point out that he did the dishes.

A man knows how to ridicule.

A man gets the door. Without thinking.
He stops traffic when he must.

A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.
He knows how to lose a month, also.

A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.
He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher’s ERA.

A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.

A man knows his tools and how to use them — just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.

A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.
He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn’t see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That’s the liberal thread; it’s why men won’t line up as liberals.

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That’s why men won’t forever line up with conservatives, either.

A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.
Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.

A man loves driving alone most of all.

A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won’t spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this — to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn’t. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next."

- Tom Chiarella, What Is a Man? (for Esquire)

Conjuring Thoughts of a Return to Eden

Stars - Changes


This time in between the day and the night
The light kills my sense of life
So scared, I'll turn it on, turn it on, turn it on

It's dull, this dusk, this desk, this dust
My eyes adjust, I'll blow out the flame
Can you and me remain

Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the gold and the gain

Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the cold and the wave
My heart beats up again

Once said, words make a world of their own
I misread, I can't get you back on the phone
So tired, I'll turn it off, turn it off, turn it off

How's that last week we were whole
You're far away and I hardly know
Can you and me delay

Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the gold and the gain

Changes, I've never been good with change
Troubled when it all stays the same
I'm caught between this cold and the wave
My heart beats up again

Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Trouble

Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble

If you want to win,

you can't be afraid to lose.

Cleverbot is Clever!

I was messing around with Cleverbot, and this conversation was recorded.

Me: You're not that clever.
CB: Neither are you.
Me: I never said I was, but you're Cleverbot, which implies that you're supposed to be clever, so therefore my assertion that you're not that clever makes more sense.
CB: I'm not avoiding that subject at all. In fact, I've admitted to that fact.
Me: Well played, Cleverbot.
CB: Sarcasm, how nice.

Valued Things

Things that are of value are double-edged swords. We can get immense happiness, joy and utility from having things that we value, but at the same time we are susceptible to the pain of not having those things we value. Additionally, we are also liable to experience the troublesomeness of having to strive for those things we value. For example, a woman who wants a man who is both competent and good looking certainly has more on her plate to deal with than one who would just rather have competence. But at the same time, having more things to value means that you're more selective, which means having higher standards. People chasing things they value are likely to enjoy the hunt itself and play it like a game.

Choosing to follow a philosophy of life that is more zen (where detachment means no loss and no unhappiness) or more liberal (where it is better to have loved and lost than not loved at all) might ultimately be a matter of what one tends to gain or lose.

Last Dance

Oh when the cold wind blows
I feel it to the bone
Oh when you say you know
I feel I am not alone

And even though I may return
To empty places on my own
Where I remember everything you want me to forget.

And you provide a parachute
When I am falling like a stone
And I remember there's a life that I have not lived yet

You and I
Truth and lies
I’ve been fooling myself too long
You and I
Breaking ties
How could we be so right and so wrong?

I hear the words you say
Your mouth against my skin
My world just falls away
You light me from within

And even though I may return
To empty places on my own
Where I remember everything you want me to forget.

And you provide a parachute
When I am falling like a stone
And I remember there's a life that I have not lived yet

You and I
Truth and lies
I’ve been fooling myself too long
You and I
Breaking ties
How could we be so right and so wrong?