Annoyance

The One That Isn't There

Alcohol is an just example. It's well-known that crude global brain impairment reduces self-monitoring first.

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

Recursive definitions are possible, but they must still be founded on a base level that does not reference itself. Each other level can then be defined in a way that is not self-referential.

-1

The One That Isn't There

16y

Q: What's the most important leg of a three-legged stool?

A: The one that isn't there.

- traditional joke-riddle

A specific neurological lesion can sometimes damage or impair specific neurological functions without touching others. In the condition famously known as "Ondine's Curse", for example, automatic control of breathing is destroyed while conscious control remains, so that without modern medical intervention nerve-damaged patients can survive only as long as they can remain awake. Such conditions are nevertheless unusual exceptions to the more general principle that complex, recently-developed, and 'meta'-functions (those that monitor and control others) are first to be impaired and lost when the nervous system is stressed, damaged, or altered.

Demonstrations of this principle... (read 659 more words →)

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

"The definition of a mammal is simple: descent from the most recent common ancestor of all mammals."

Valid definitions cannot reference themselves.

-4

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

".--but we admit to the category of mammals many animals that fail one or more of these criteria."

No, we don't. Dolphins have all of the required attributes to be considered mammals. If they didn't, we couldn't call them mammals any longer.

-2

Replying toPound of Feathers, Pound of Gold

Pound of Feathers, Pound of Gold

That is an absolutely charming interpretation, and one that makes a lot of sense. However, in my experience, it's not how the riddle is commonly used.

That would be a great way to show off your knowledge of jeweler's weights, though.

Replying toPound of Feathers, Pound of Gold

Pound of Feathers, Pound of Gold

There's more to it, of course. Ask the question with substances that don't produce strong associations regarding "weight" (really, density), and people tend not to get it wrong no matter how much time pressure is involved.

Pound of Feathers, Pound of Gold

16y

Which weighs more: a pound of feathers, or a pound of gold?

Close consideration of this riddle - and the conditions under which people tend to get it wrong - is helpful in understanding the limits of human rationality. It is a specific example which leads us to general principles of rationality failure.

These sorts of riddles and similar interpersonal language tricks (such as "Stupid says what?") are especially popular among children but not among adults. Why is this the case? Partly because adults are more likely to have previously encountered and become familiar with their patterns, but there are other factors - including one very relevant one. Children tend to have less-developed capacities... (read 516 more words →)

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

The biological category of 'mammal' is quite well-defined, thank you.

And fuzzy definitions are fine until you're dealing with a case that lies in the penumbra, at which time it becomes a massive problem.

-1

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

In other words, we have to learn logic, we're not born with it.

No.

Electric charge doesn't spontaneously do arithmetic either.

No. It does nothing but mathematics.

-7

Replying toWhy I'm Staying On Bloggingheads.tv

Why I'm Staying On Bloggingheads.tv

This looks sincere to me, and given that it's sincere, people really ought to be allowed more chance than this to recover from their mistakes.

I say that depends entirely on the nature of the mistake. Gross negligence should not be forgiven, although the proper response is not necessarily retributive.

Replying toThe Featherless Biped

If these points about psychology were actually as commonly known as the composition of water then you wouldn't need an analogy- you would just sarcastically remark "A citation? Really?".

Nope, 'cause you people know virtually nothing about psychology. Which is why I so frequently see statements of boggling ignorance made here about how and why human minds do stuff.

If a person wants citations to support a statement about the composition of water, my reaction is to tell them to go find a schoolchild and ask them about chemistry. Or pick up a brightly-colored children's book about science and learn something. Maybe watch a little 3-2-1 Contact or Bill Nye.

-9

Book Review: Complications

16y

The classical understanding of categories centers on necessary and sufficient properties. If a thing has X, Y, and Z, we say that it belongs to class A; if it lacks them, we say that it does not. This is the model of how humans construct and recognize categories that philosophers have held since the days of Aristotle.

Cognitive scientists found that the reality isn't that simple.

Human categorization is not a neat and precise process. When asked to explain the necessary features of, say, a bird, people cannot. When confronted with collections of stimuli and asked to determine which represent examples of 'birds', people find it easy to accept or reject things that have... (read 279 more words →)

17y

Atul Gawande's Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science is a mixed bag for rationalists. Written as a series of essays organized into three sections entitled Fallibility, Mystery, and Uncertainty, the book as a whole is of questionable value, but the sections need to be considered individually for their worth to be accurately recognized.

Fallibility examines a number of issues involving error and how it can be avoided in medicine, including but not limited to: how computers are better than humans at making diagnoses, the factors that are known to negatively influence human reasoning when applied to diagnosis and treatment, how and why doctors make errors, what happens when doctors "go bad",... (read 366 more words →)

Guilt by Association

17y

The formal concept of the fallacious argument was born as the twin of logic itself. When the ancient Greeks first began to systematically examine the natural arguments people made as they sought to demonstrate the truth of propositions, they noted that certain types of arguments were vulnerable to counterexamples while others were not. The vulnerable were not true - when it was claimed that they justified a conclusion they could not rule out the alternative - and so were identified as fallacious.

Although the validity of logical arguments can be determined through logic, that doesn't particularly distinguish one fallacy from another. It is a curious fact that, despite this, some fallacies are more... (read 501 more words →)

The Laws of Magic

Would You Slap Your Father? Article Linkage and Discussion

17y

People are always telling you that "we have always done thus", and then you find that their "always" means a generation or two, or a century or two, at most a millennium or two. Cultural ways and habits are blips compared to the ways and habits of the body, of the race. There really is very little that human beings on our plane have always done, except find food and drink, sing, talk, procreate, nurture the children, and probably band together to some extent.
- Ursula K. Le Guin, "Seasons of the Ansarac", Changing Planes

Human cultures vary wildly and dicursively, so it is worth noting which things all known human societies have in... (read 377 more words →)

17y

I said that my next post would discuss why IQ tests don't measure frontal executive functions, but I've found something tangential yet extremely topical which I think should be discussed first.

A reader sent me a link to this Opinion column written by New York Times writer Nicholas D. Kristof: Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You're A Liberal.

The title is clearly meant to grab attention; don't let its provocative nature dissuade you from reading the article. Most of it is remarkably free from partisan bias, although there are one or two bits which are objectionable. Far more important is that it addresses the relationships between 'emotional' reactions, political positions and affiliations, and reason.

It's a short article, brief enough that I don't think I need to sum it up, and of sufficient quality that I can recommend that you peruse it yourself with a clear conscience. Take the two or three minutes required to read it, please, and then comment your thoughts below.

The Frontal Syndrome

17y

Neuroscientists have a difficult time figuring out which parts of the brain are involved in different functions. Naturally-occurring lesions to the brain are rarely specific to a particular anatomical region, the complications involved with the injury and treatment act as a smokescreen, and finding a patient who's damaged the particular spot you want to learn about is frustrating at best and nigh-impossible at worst.

Fortunately for researchers, inappropriate surgical interventions of the past can shed light on neurological questions.

The strange and horrifying history of psychosurgery is a topic beyond the scope of this site, and certainly beyond this post. Interested readers can easily find a great wealth of relevant discussion on the Net... (read 651 more words →)

Inhibition and the Mind

The First Koan: Drinking the Hot Iron Ball

17y

Babies have a curious set of reflexes: lightly brush their palms, or the soles of their feet, and they will immediately grasp whatever caused the contact. In the case of feet, it’s more of an attempt than a successful grasping; human feet, while far more flexible and manipulative than most creatures’, are no longer the virtual hands possessed by our tree-dwelling ancestors and relatives.

These and a few other basic responses are commonly called the “primitive, or infantile, reflexes“, and are unusual for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they’re not permanent. As babies age, the reflexes disappear.

But they’re not gone. Unlike many other reflexes, they don’t originate in the peripheral nerves,

... (read 306 more words →)