- Brain's DMN (default mode network)
- "DISEASE AND THE BRAIN'S DARK ENERGY" Dongyang Zhang and Marcus E. Raichle in /Nature Reviews Neurology/ Vol. 6 pages 15-18; January 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Delusions of Optimism
You're waltzing along, lip-synching to the beat of your favorite tune, appreciating how everything in your life is going great. You couldn't possibly be more happy or content when, all of a sudden, the floor gives way and you fall through and are impaled through the head in a pit of large spikes. That's what it's like when your optimism doesn't hold against reality. Maybe that's a metaphor, maybe it isn't.
There is nothing wrong with trying to put a positive spin on things. One could argue that maybe it's even helpful in certain situations - fighting for a lost friend (pessimism would say "it won't matter, they're gone forever") or even losing someone - "Hey, why not try to look on the bright side and focus on all the good memories?" Maybe, sometimes, it even leads to achievements, if you optimistically believe in yourself. It may even breed better feelings of self-worth. But this is purely situational. Optimism should be used sparingly; it should never be used when it is combined with naivete. Look where /that/'s lead us - "Oh, the housing market's greaaaaat! " Look where it is now. "Oh, those protocols and that battery will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine not being checked like they're supposed to be, especially since it's not like there's going to be any huge ramifications or anything." Take a gander at the horrible black gold spewing from the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico, destroying habitats and ecosystems for ages to come.
Something important to underline is that optimism and naivete are not always partners - you can be naive OR optimistic or a combination of both. The worst kind of optimism is that of a naive optimist - a person whose positivity has little base or standing in reality. This is the kind of person who will not consider the risks of a situation and will get hurt badly by people because they do not realize humanity's ability to harm, and are bound to make the same mistakes over and over. Leave the naivete behind and name a person you know who has never fallen for the optimism bias (falling due to overestimation of good occurrences and underestimation of bad ones). The answer? No one.
But pessimism is surely not the way to live, right? No, the real way to life is to be realistic. Being realistic, you keep your ideals and thoughts in check with reality (or your perception thereof) and maybe don't just give up (pessimism), or get unnaturally happy or have horrendously high expectations (optimism). It's simultaneously the middle ground and the most grounded of the three.
Reality must be more important than fantasy if we are to survive and grow. After all, isn't most of the progress we've ever made been due to our struggle to see the world for how it truly is?
There is nothing wrong with trying to put a positive spin on things. One could argue that maybe it's even helpful in certain situations - fighting for a lost friend (pessimism would say "it won't matter, they're gone forever") or even losing someone - "Hey, why not try to look on the bright side and focus on all the good memories?" Maybe, sometimes, it even leads to achievements, if you optimistically believe in yourself. It may even breed better feelings of self-worth. But this is purely situational. Optimism should be used sparingly; it should never be used when it is combined with naivete. Look where /that/'s lead us - "Oh, the housing market's greaaaaat! " Look where it is now. "Oh, those protocols and that battery will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine not being checked like they're supposed to be, especially since it's not like there's going to be any huge ramifications or anything." Take a gander at the horrible black gold spewing from the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico, destroying habitats and ecosystems for ages to come.
Something important to underline is that optimism and naivete are not always partners - you can be naive OR optimistic or a combination of both. The worst kind of optimism is that of a naive optimist - a person whose positivity has little base or standing in reality. This is the kind of person who will not consider the risks of a situation and will get hurt badly by people because they do not realize humanity's ability to harm, and are bound to make the same mistakes over and over. Leave the naivete behind and name a person you know who has never fallen for the optimism bias (falling due to overestimation of good occurrences and underestimation of bad ones). The answer? No one.
But pessimism is surely not the way to live, right? No, the real way to life is to be realistic. Being realistic, you keep your ideals and thoughts in check with reality (or your perception thereof) and maybe don't just give up (pessimism), or get unnaturally happy or have horrendously high expectations (optimism). It's simultaneously the middle ground and the most grounded of the three.
Reality must be more important than fantasy if we are to survive and grow. After all, isn't most of the progress we've ever made been due to our struggle to see the world for how it truly is?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Help a Puddle-Head!
I know I've posted before about how there isn't really any such thing as so-called "intrinsic motivation" (doing something just to do it). Now a rhyme and reason have been discovered as to why we do selfless things - dopamine. Our brains release shots of dopamine when we engage in selfless behavior.
Of course, this first requires a drive to do something selfless, doesn't it? Say you're walking to your local ice cream emporium and you stumble upon a puddle of someone. As in, a puddle of their head. It's not really a puddle... it's pretty much just their head, but it's kind of squishy. It/they is/are talking and asking for help. You'd possibly feel the urge (not in a group - diffusion of responsibility) to help - say, pull out the sponge you keep lodged between your ears and wipe them up or at least help them somehow. I'd argue that we have the urge to do that because we anticipate the incoming shot of feel-good, and we act on it, receiving the reward that is the good feeling. And yet, looking back, most people would probably say that they helped because they knew the puddlehead was in need of help. Denial. Justification.
Apparently, the dopamine reward lessens the longer you wait to do your act of "good samaritism". If it doesn't happen right away, you get much less of a reward.
I think that it'd probably be relatively easy to become addicted to volunteering because the rush of dopamine feels so darn good.
Now, why do you think we delight in things being faster and quicker and more streamlined? Because not only are things generally less cumbersome this way, but when we're doing good, we don't want to have to punch in a 36-digit credit card number to send money to The Red Cross. We want the dopamine NOW and as much of it as we possibly can.
[Idea from WIRED Magazine: May 2010. "Instant Karma".]
Of course, this first requires a drive to do something selfless, doesn't it? Say you're walking to your local ice cream emporium and you stumble upon a puddle of someone. As in, a puddle of their head. It's not really a puddle... it's pretty much just their head, but it's kind of squishy. It/they is/are talking and asking for help. You'd possibly feel the urge (not in a group - diffusion of responsibility) to help - say, pull out the sponge you keep lodged between your ears and wipe them up or at least help them somehow. I'd argue that we have the urge to do that because we anticipate the incoming shot of feel-good, and we act on it, receiving the reward that is the good feeling. And yet, looking back, most people would probably say that they helped because they knew the puddlehead was in need of help. Denial. Justification.
Apparently, the dopamine reward lessens the longer you wait to do your act of "good samaritism". If it doesn't happen right away, you get much less of a reward.
I think that it'd probably be relatively easy to become addicted to volunteering because the rush of dopamine feels so darn good.
Now, why do you think we delight in things being faster and quicker and more streamlined? Because not only are things generally less cumbersome this way, but when we're doing good, we don't want to have to punch in a 36-digit credit card number to send money to The Red Cross. We want the dopamine NOW and as much of it as we possibly can.
[Idea from WIRED Magazine: May 2010. "Instant Karma".]
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
My sin.
Is gluttony. Of books.
Today, I went to the library and picked up eight items. Three are books in a new series, two are Legend of Zelda manga, one is a collection of zombie stories, and two are recent issues of Scientific American. I was half-crazy when I got everything, but I got so many things because I've been depraved of physical reading material for around a half-week or so.
That may not seem like long to you, but to me, that's almost an eternity. A horrible, horrible eternity in which the only things I have to do are doodle, mindlessly grind in video games and... rot, I suppose. There are friends here and there, but they do not console my lack of books to devour! It's like having an appetite that cannot ever be satiated.
Anyway. The point of this blog is to reintroduce blogging to myself, because I will be doing it again. Not only as another way to shave away some of my free time (which, at the moment - I am jobless - I seem to have too much of), but as a way to put my thoughts out there.
Considering the two Americans I picked up (Italics for titles! I DID NOT PICK UP AMERICAN HOOKERS I SWEAR) have some pretty sex-- interesting issues in them, expect to see a blog on consciousness and "the multiverse".
AND THIS GOD-FORSAKEN OIL SPILL. Scroll down a little on this page. See the blogs from a few months ago - one with a red rage face and another with an exploding head? Combine those and multiply them by two hundred thousand and you'll see how I feel about it!
Today, I went to the library and picked up eight items. Three are books in a new series, two are Legend of Zelda manga, one is a collection of zombie stories, and two are recent issues of Scientific American. I was half-crazy when I got everything, but I got so many things because I've been depraved of physical reading material for around a half-week or so.
That may not seem like long to you, but to me, that's almost an eternity. A horrible, horrible eternity in which the only things I have to do are doodle, mindlessly grind in video games and... rot, I suppose. There are friends here and there, but they do not console my lack of books to devour! It's like having an appetite that cannot ever be satiated.
Anyway. The point of this blog is to reintroduce blogging to myself, because I will be doing it again. Not only as another way to shave away some of my free time (which, at the moment - I am jobless - I seem to have too much of), but as a way to put my thoughts out there.
Considering the two Americans I picked up (Italics for titles! I DID NOT PICK UP AMERICAN HOOKERS I SWEAR) have some pretty sex-- interesting issues in them, expect to see a blog on consciousness and "the multiverse".
AND THIS GOD-FORSAKEN OIL SPILL. Scroll down a little on this page. See the blogs from a few months ago - one with a red rage face and another with an exploding head? Combine those and multiply them by two hundred thousand and you'll see how I feel about it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)