the evolving mind

It is my belief that old terms and concepts and even the superficially benign connotations of words can constrain human intellectual progress. One example of this is old-school materialism. In this perspective, something exists, something is “real,” only if it consists of matter and can be pinned down and identified.

Yet is a photon not a fundamental “part” of our reality? The photon is a massless . . . part-icle. Or is it a wave? We clearly lack an accurate label. From Einstein’s mind-bending theoretical advances we have learned that mass and energy aren’t two separate things. However, there is not mass on one hand and energy on the other. Energy is not simply what causes change to matter.

Sure, from today’s relatively static cosmos we have formed the opinion that matter rules. But reverse the tape billions of years and what you’d likely see is an incredibly hot and energetic plasma-like state with particles flitting in and out of existence. Energy would be the rule, identifiable matter more of an exception. Was the “stuff” of the universe at that time somehow less real?

In a science article from August of last year I read this about research into quantum events -

Because theorists had believed since 1926 that a measurement of a quantum particle inevitably forced a collapse, it was said that in a way, measurements created reality as we understand it. Katz, however, says being able to reverse the collapse “tells us that we really can’t assume that measurements create reality because it is possible to erase the effects of a measurement and start again.”

My question is this: Do not events, such as the collapse-causing measurement of a quantum state, have a reality of their own? Must there be some duration of temporal persistence for us to grant an event the status of being part of reality? Why?

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What does the above substance “trap”? For 20 more points, what is it? Answer below the fold.

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Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a serious condition. I would call it a “mental” condition or ailment, but I don’t like that term. It can perpetuate an outdated body/mind dualism. That aside, one of the symptoms of GAD is chronic worrying. A new treatment from the cognitive behavioral branch of psychotherapy called “worry exposure” (WE) has recently been tested. And it was a success, as the news release concludes -

This is the first study to show that a stand-alone exposure in sensu technique – WE – is efficacious in the treatment of GAD.

Wonderful news. As a humanistically-oriented ape I welcome treatments that reduce suffering and increase the quality of life for my kind. But as a skeptical primate I also wonder, Just how successful was that success?

The answer, it seems, is fairly successful. But I’m not sure. Of the subjects in the WE treatment group, 48% were measured as achieving “high end state functioning.” Whatever that means. But the WE group was only one of three. There was also a control group and a group that was treated with an “empirically supported stand-alone treatment,” applied relaxation (AR). How many of the AR group reached the threshold endstate? For that group the number was better: 56%.

As for the control group — that very important number was not provided. To determine that a treatment is effective it is imperative to know how much better the treatment group did/does than those in the placebo or control group. It is one thing if proportion of subjects in the control group reaching the deemed “success” threshold was 10%, something completely else if the number was 40%.

How successful was that successful treatment? I, for one, want to know.

Technorati Links: critical thinking, mental illness, psychotherapy

You can learn something new every day. Here are a few fun facts about the hyena:

More closely related to cats than dogs, hyenas are most closely related to the animal family that includes mongooses. They can weigh up to 185 pounds and stand up to 3 feet tall, with jaws capable of cracking open giraffe leg bones up to 3 inches in diameter.

Cool. But I think I just broke a molar imagining that last bit of info.

[source]

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Apparently the roots of our dwarf banana trees (technically they aren’t trees but herbaceous flowering plants) survived the winter frosts. New leaves are pushing up out of the sandy soil. Will we enjoy fruit later in the year? I doubt it. We’ve come close a couple times. But a few weeks before the small bananas were ready to pick, the strong winds of our hurricane season snapped their supporting stalks. Some years we don’t even get the blossoms that might lead to edible deliciousness. I don’t know why. For us to hit the fruit jackpot we’ll need triple-cherries of fortune.

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As a person who enjoys having sex (who doesn’t), eating meat (as most do), and learning about chimpanzee behavior (as fewer do), this science finding was right in my wheel house -

Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time.

I had actually heard this before. But confirming evidence will give you more confidence in an idea.

In recent research conducted in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, Cristina M. Gomes and Christophe Boesch show that females copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them on at least one occasion, compared with males who never share meat with them, indicating that sharing meat with females improves a males’ mating success.

The researchers even controlled for the period of the sexual cycle the females were in. Nice work.

Scientists aren’t perfect, of course. One of them went on record saying something I find a bit silly.

Boesch concluded, “Our findings add to the ever-growing evidence suggesting that chimpanzees can think in the past and the future and that this influences their present behavior.

What? Do my dogs love my wife more not because they associate her with treats and affection, but because they can think more highly of her? “Think in the past and future”?

Anyway. As for why human males don’t share meat with females for sexual reasons (settle down now) . . . perhaps chocolate and flowers were a more valued treat when the custom began. Perhaps.

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A new study got me thinking about love. The title grabbed my attention, but the body of the piece disappointed me.

Is Love At First Sight Real? Geneticists Offer Tantalizing Clues

Here’s what they found-

[A] team of scientists from the United States and Australia discovered that at the genetic level, some males and females are more compatible than others, and that this compatibility plays an important role in mate selection, mating outcomes, and future reproductive behaviors.

Intriguing, eh? How did the scientists make the above determination. By studying fruit flies.

Em. Is it just me, or have the researchers and writers taken liberties with the word “love”? Granted, there are many types of love. On online dictionary includes these definitions:

A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Sexual passion.
Sexual intercourse.
A love affair.
An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
An expression of one’s affection: Send him my love.
A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
often Love Christianity. Charity.
Sports. A zero score in tennis.

Good scientists are precise in their measurements. Good science writers are precise in their use of words. Do fruit flies “love”? If so, do they love in the same senses of the word that humans do? I tend to doubt it. Sure, there may be some gross behavioral similarities. But when was the last time a fruit fly wrote a country music song about his intense longing for a female?

Technorati Links: emotion, psychology, semantics

I wouldn’t mind doing some work in space. Maybe hammer a few nails. Hopefully I wouldn’t let a bunch slip out of my gloved hand and float off toward Neptune. What would it feel like to swing a hammer in zero G? I can only imagine.

Yesterday evening I sipped a martini (a much too high-class word to accurately reflect my lifestyle) by our backyard goldfish pond. I thought how neat it would be to be shrunk to the size of a broken tip of pencil graphite and walk around on top of a lily leaf, floating on water. Would I encounter fungus tangles up to my ankles? Midges the size of my head? And what would the world look like from there, besides BIG?

I can only imagine.

[pic thanks to NASA]

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Alas, no results from the Large Hadron Collider . . . yet. I’ve been waiting with some anticipation. What will happen when they bring that behemoth to full power? Will Schrödinger’s cat spontaneously materialize? Will a particle zipping before their eyes disappear a micro-second before a researcher slaps the back of his neck, thinking a mosquito — or something — has bitten him?

A long eight months ago I printed out an article with this title: Large Hadron Collider Set To Unveil A New World Of Particle Physics. Unfortunately, someone forget to yell “go” after the “ready” and “set” were given. Actually, that’s not it. Technical difficulties have delayed progress.

In scanning that ancient document from August of last year, a philosophical-ish question came back to me. And it is this: Will the LHC “unveil” a new world . . . or create it? How are they the same; how are they different? When new bits of matter are produced by smashing other bits of matter together, can we say something was discovered? Or was it manufactured? Maybe both.

I’m no particle physicist. But I wonder.

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A new study just came out that links gender differences in response to stress to genetic differences between males and females. Maybe it was my mood, but my initial reaction was, “Yah, what else is new?” Men and women are different, yawn, not just skin-deep and with privates unique, but down to the bone of biological life: their DNA ain’t the same.

But then I learned something new, stepped away from the study for awhile, and had a little epiphany.

Here’s the new:

It is generally believed that the genetic code plays a prominent role in different responses to stress. It has been estimated that the heredity factor determines by some 62 percent the level of the stress hormone (cortisol) in our bodies. However, only a handful of investigations so far have documented the role of specific genetic variants on shaping the stress response among individuals.

The news, to me, was the 62% part. That the level of stress hormone in our bodies is roughly two thirds determined by our genes does not mean, of course, that meditation and other stress-reducing techniques and medications can only be 1/3 effective. It is far more complicated than that.

Forgive me for simplifying, but sometimes an analogy can help. And that’s where my little epiphany came in. In a sense, the scientific enterprise can be viewed as a tremendous number of men and women working alone or in groups, wearing white coats (this is an analogy!) and holding hammers in one hand and chisels in the other. Before them: the massive stone of what we don’t know. They hammer and chip away, slowly shaping a more precise understanding of the universe.

In line with the analogy, we get most excited when we learn a great chunk has been removed. Cool! Look at that! But less exciting do we find — at least we relative lay people — the change of a tiny chip flying away. The study above was one such chip. For me. Yet it certainly may help shape our understanding by bringing greater precision: isolating a specific gene variant involved in the stress response.

We also tend to show limited interest to none in studies that replicate the findings of others. In this case what you’ve got is alternative sculptors whacking away at the stone and discovering that the shape is indeed correct.

Maybe it is just the way our minds work. The big and the new draw our attention the most. Nonetheless . . . . can you hear that? Do you hear the thousands of hammers meeting chisel this very moment? It’s a beautiful sound.

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