I’m trying to stay away from small posts without purpose, but there’s only so often you read, in a reputable science publication, phrases like “In some cases, breasts can slap against the chest with enough force to break the clavicle,” and “No one really knows the long-term medical consequences of ‘excessive breast bounce.’”
(This is bound to get me some wierd hits from search engines….)
This is why we temper our mind and body in martial arts. (Well, one of the reasons) It’s not about bruising each other up and dulling nerves.
From over at mind hacks, a mental health charity challenged it’s members to express the contradictions of mental turmoil and the self through artwork.
Absolutely brilliant. If you’ve read any of my pieces related to turning the world upside down (Saito’s words, not mine), this is exactly the sort of thing I’m referring to: Pledge-a-Picket
Security Advisory
Component: common-lisp-controller
Date Reported: 14 Sep 2005
Affected Packages: common-lisp-controller
Category: design error
How to Argue on the Internet
or
Going Head to Head with and Internet Tough Guy and Not Looking Retarded
or
Why the Troll Handed You Your Ass
Arguing, debating, and other generally useless Internet activities are somewhat different that in other mediums. Although similar to a spoken debate, in that jabs are generally traded in somewhat of a reciprocative manner, there are subtle but important elements of human communication that are lost. Elements such inflection, cadence, and body language are not present or very difficult to convey at the least. Furthermore, there are elements of “netiquette” that are oft overlooked, where such oversights would be unacceptably damaging to one’s arguments should the analogous action be performed in person.
On the up side, it’s next to impossible to be interrupted.
Gleaned from years of net existence, here’s my guidelines for not looking like a complete dumbass when arguing on the Internet. Remember, you’re not trying to convince your opponent you’re right, you’re trying to convince everyone else. After all, your opponent is an idiot, so he or she must be wrong. You’re just trying to make sure he or she doesn’t contaminate others.
Your opponent will read it at least twice three times that, and quote you on it.
Most of this couldn’t be more obvious. But, as they say, arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics – even if you win, you’re still retarded.
Ok, a couple months ago I queried thusly:
I remember being told as a child that most people could keep track of up to seven different ‘things’ at once. Now, recent research suggests four, at least if they’re trying to integrate the four into a relationship. I’d be interested to see some research as to if the previous notion of ‘seven’ is at all accurate, and if so, if some of that mental storage in the ‘seven’ case is being repurposed for relationship processing in the ‘four’ case.
Can we really can we make time/space tradeoffs in our brain? Does keeping track of seven independent (or minimally dependent) items exhaust our on-core registers, and if we want to establish a non-trivial relationship between the up to four of the items that was not known before, do we ‘trade’ three of the registers for processing cycles, or do we just lose the ability to address three of the registers? Most of the research I’ve read suggest our short term ‘working set’ of memory a nd analysis is extremely fluid in it’s addressing of functions and storage, but that the array of functions/storage is quite large (hence activation of different areas of the brain for different exercises.) This naturally leads me to two questions:
Now, I read this:
Working memory is the brain’s short-term information storage system. It’s a workbench for solving mental problems. For example if you calculate 73 – 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer. And the amount of information that the working memory can hold is strongly related to general intelligence.
A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 75).
Sweet, maybe I was on the right track.
Then the article followed up later with this:
Actors attach emotional meaning to what they say. We always remember highly emotional moments better than less emotionally loaded ones. Professional actors also seem to link words with movement, remembering action-accompanied lines significantly better than those delivered while static, even months after a show has closed.
Which is interesting because I just sent a link (to a different article) to my Sensei, and article that suggested that gestures served to help trigger memory and vocabulary, as opposed to just expressing emotion or expository direction. Where’s the connection to martial arts? Well, you know all those little finger-movements you see ninjas do in the movies? These are kuji-in, adapted from Buddhism, otherwise known as mudra. I believe such physical movements can serve to trigger not just conscious memory of words/names/text/etc, but can trigger baser emotion, attitudes, or personality shifts, if you encode them as such. It’s a feedback loop.
Now, on to the next – everyone who knows me, including former bosses who wanted me to stay up all night to get some project done – knows that I’ve always said things are hard when you’re tired (common knowledge). But let’s get a neuro-scientist to throw down $0.02:
“If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk,” says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego. And you don’t need to pull an all-nighter to suffer the effects: two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot have the same effect. [âŠ] Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practises and hones new skills – and even solves problems. Say you’re trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player.
So, let’s go back to this mind-body feedback loop again, to those who think that 24/7 immersion in one thing is the best way to get things done:
There’s another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this. And the effect works both ways. Just as physical exercise can boost the brain, mental exercise can boost the body. In 2001, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio asked volunteers to spend just 15 minutes a day thinking about exercising their biceps. After 12 weeks, their arms were 13 per cent stronger.
Jumping again, let’s hit up Ninpo (and Taoist internal arts) again:
Neurofeedback grew out of biofeedback therapy, popular in the 1960s. It works by showing people a real-time measure of some seemingly uncontrollable aspect of their physiology – heart rate, say – and encouraging them to try and change it. Astonishingly, many patients found that they could, though only rarely could they describe how they did it.
More recently, this technique has been applied to the brain – specifically to brain wave activity measured by an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The first attempts were aimed at boosting the size of the alpha wave, which crescendos when we are calm and focused. In one experiment, researchers linked the speed of a car in a computer game to the size of the alpha wave. They then asked subjects to make the car go faster using only their minds. Many managed to do so, and seemed to become more alert and focused as a result.
This is Ninpo. Control yourself body and mind to acheive your goals. This is Taoism. Control yourself, until control is no longer required, to adapt and exists without conflict. As Uncle David said to me in a dream a few weeks ago, “It’s easy if you focus.”
From the guys:
A long time ago, I knew two things about jerking off: It involved jerking something, and it felt good. Alas, if only I had known what needed to be jerked. One day, determined that I should no longer miss out on this marvelous jerking off I kept hearing about, I made a guess, grabbed a hold of my testicles, and gave them a good solid jerk straight downward. I felt something, but it wasnt good.
Oh, and from the girls, too:
I went with my dad to visit his best friend, who bred Saint Bernards. While there, I saw this large wooden contraption and asked Dad what it was for. Turns out it was a breeding support so the dog (who is usually well over 150 lbs.) doesnt hurt the bitch. My dad explained what a mommy dog and a daddy dog do to make puppies. He explained as accurately as a 4-year-old could understand, and I seemed to get what he was talking about. Later that day we came home and I ran up to my mother. Mom! Guess what I learned today! I then proceeded to give a fairly detailed description of what a mommy dog and a daddy dog do to make puppies, followed by the exclamation: You and Dad should do that! You see, I wanted a puppy.
Great interview with one of my favorite groups.
Choice excerpts that mirror some views I’ve long held:
”I think we have a natural ability to recognise harmony and I think this exists as much within an engineering context as it does within music. Working in a studio is really no different than building a bridge from metal girders, isn’t it?”
Mirrors my reply to people thinking engineering is “boring” – I see tons of creativity within different constrants and languages and symbols, and different ways of breaking all the above in different environments. Good engineering is beauty, good sex is music, good literature is function.
”It seems that for a lot of people, if they hear something that doesn’t sound regular, they assume it’s random. If live musicians were playing it, they’d probably call it jazz or something. But the fact that it’s coming out of a computer, as they perceive it, somehow seems to make it different.”
If you’re going to define something, define it by it’s substance and not it’s surface. Computers are tools. While some tools leave artifacts, it is in fact the artist that should determine either: 1) master the tools enough such that the artifacts are a result of intent rather than ineptitude, and/or 2) choose the right tools for the job.
Isn’t this just all about meaning? We hear what we want, and label it accordingly, but how attentively are we listening? Maybe you should listen to a semiotician speak on electronic libraries taking the place of God. Trust me, there are parallels there if you look – err, listen – hard enough.