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margrethe

05047

• causal understanding is not necessary for the improvement of culturally evolving technology
  maxime derex et al. 2019
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0567-9
  these authors probably have an agenda, but the basic idea is worth considering, is causal understanding necessary for change?

  • items could have emerged from an "accumulation of improvements made across generations" -- with each generation understanding no more than the last.

    The new study, by the University of Exeter and the Catholic University of Lille, does not question humanity's capacity for "enhanced causal reasoning" -- but argues this did not necessarily drive the development of technologies such as bows, boats and houses.

    Researchers used "chains" of volunteers to tackle an engineering problem, with each volunteer able to learn from the last. Solutions improved with each "generation" -- but those at the end of the chain had no more understanding of key concepts than their predecessors.

    "We tend to explain the existence of complex technologies by saying humans have big brains and superior causal reasoning abilities," said Dr Maxime Derex, of the University of Exeter and the Catholic University of Lille.

    "But -- as our study shows -- you don't have to understand how something works in order to improve it.

    "Artefacts from hundreds or thousands of years ago do not necessarily show that their makers had a plan or a theory about how something would work."

    The study used 14 chains of five French university students, each aiming to optimise a wheel that rolled down a track -- moving faster or slower depending on the adjustment of moveable weights on its four spokes.

    Each participant had five attempts to minimise the time it took for the wheel the reach the end of the track, and all but the first participant in each chain got details of the last two configurations used by the previous person.

    Afterwards, researchers tested each participant's understanding by asking them to predict which of two wheels would cover the distance faster.

    The study found: "The average wheel speed increased across generations while participants' understanding did not."

    A further 14 chains of students completed the same process, but this time they could write down a theory to pass to the next participant.

    Wheel speed rose at a similar rate as that seen in groups who passed on no written instructions, but once again understanding "barely changed across generations."

    The researchers said: "Most participants actually produced incorrect or incomplete theories despite the relative simplicity of the physical system."

    The findings prove the power of "cultural transmission, without the need for an accurate causal understanding of the system," they said.

    "Our experiment indicates that one should be cautious when interpreting complex archaeological materials as evidence for sophisticated cognitive abilities such as reasoning, problem solving or planning, since these abilities are not the sole driver of technological sophistication," said Dr Alex Mesoudi, of the University of Exeter.

  • abstract Bows and arrows, houses and kayaks are just a few examples of the highly optimized tools that humans have produced and used to colonize new environments1,2. Because there is much evidence that humans’ cognitive abilities are unparalleled3,4, many believe that such technologies resulted from our superior causal reasoning abilities5,6,7. However, others have stressed that the high dimensionality of human technologies makes them very difficult to understand causally8. Instead, they argue that optimized technologies emerge through the retention of small improvements across generations without requiring understanding of how these technologies work1,9. Here we show that a physical artefact becomes progressively optimized across generations of social learners in the absence of explicit causal understanding. Moreover, we find that the transmission of causal models across generations has no noticeable effect on the pace of cultural evolution. The reason is that participants do not spontaneously create multidimensional causal theories but, instead, mainly produce simplistic models related to a salient dimension. Finally, we show that the transmission of these inaccurate theories constrains learners’ exploration and has downstream effects on their understanding. These results indicate that complex technologies need not result from enhanced causal reasoning but, instead, can emerge from the accumulation of improvements made across generations.

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• learning about and from others' prudence, impatience or laziness: the computational bases of attitude alignment
  marie devaine, jean daunizeau 2017
  dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005422

  • Peoples' subjective attitude towards costs such as, e.g., risk, delay or effort are key determinants of inter-individual differences in goal-directed behaviour. Thus, the ability to learn about others' prudent, impatient or lazy attitudes is likely to be critical for social interactions. Conversely, how adaptive such attitudes are in a given environment is highly uncertain. Thus, the brain may be tuned to garner information about how such costs ought to be arbitrated. In particular, observing others' attitude may change one's uncertain belief about how to best behave in related difficult decision contexts. In turn, learning from others' attitudes is determined by one's ability to learn about others' attitudes. We first derive, from basic optimality principles, the computational properties of such a learning mechanism. In particular, we predict two apparent cognitive biases that would arise when individuals are learning about others’ attitudes: (i) people should overestimate the degree to which they resemble others (false-consensus bias), and (ii) they should align their own attitudes with others’ (social influence bias). We show how these two biases non-trivially interact with each other. We then validate these predictions experimentally by profiling people's attitudes both before and after guessing a series of cost-benefit arbitrages performed by calibrated artificial agents (which are impersonating human individuals).

    What do people learn from observing others' attitudes, such as "prudence", "impatience" or "laziness"? Rather than viewing these attitudes as examples of highly subjective personality traits, we assume that they derive from uncertain (and mostly implicit) beliefs about how to best weigh risks, delays and efforts in ensuing cost-benefit trade-offs. In this view, it is adaptive to update one's belief after having observed others' attitude, which provides valuable information regarding how to best behave in related difficult decision contexts. This is the starting point of our computational model of attitude alignment, which we derive from first optimality principles as well as from recent neuroscientific findings. Critical here is the impact of one's ability to learn about others' covert mental states or attitudes, which is known as "mentalizing" or "Theory of Mind". In particular, this model makes two (otherwise unrelated) predictions that conform to known but puzzling cognitive biases of social cognition in humans, namely: "false consensus" and "social influence". It also shows how attitude alignment may eventually follow from the interaction between these two biases. Using state-of-the-art behavioural and computational methods, we provide experimental evidence that confirm these predictions. Finally, we discuss the relevance and implications of this work, both from a neuroscientific and economic perspective.

05247

• eye-tracking causality
  tobias gerstenberg et al. 2017
  dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797617713053

  • How do people make causal judgments? What role, if any, does counterfactual simulation play? Counterfactual theories of causal judgments predict that people compare what actually happened with what would have happened if the candidate cause had been absent. Process theories predict that people focus only on what actually happened, to assess the mechanism linking candidate cause and outcome. We tracked participants’ eye movements while they judged whether one billiard ball caused another one to go through a gate or prevented it from going through. Both participants’ looking patterns and their judgments demonstrated that counterfactual simulation played a critical role. Participants simulated where the target ball would have gone if the candidate cause had been removed from the scene. The more certain participants were that the outcome would have been different, the stronger the causal judgments. These results provide the first direct evidence for spontaneous counterfactual simulation in an important domain of high-level cognition.

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• the well-being machine
  sarah perry 2018
  https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/06/12/the-well-being-machine/

  • nomological machine

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• supernatural belief is not modulated by intuitive thinking style or cognitive inhibition
  miguel farias et al. 2017
  dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-14090-9

  • According to the Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, supernatural belief relies heavily on intuitive thinking—and decreases when analytic thinking is engaged. After pointing out various limitations in prior attempts to support this Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, we test it across three new studies using a variety of paradigms, ranging from a pilgrimage field study to a neurostimulation experiment. In all three studies, we found no relationship between intuitive or analytical thinking and supernatural belief. We conclude that it is premature to explain belief in gods as ‘intuitive’, and that other factors, such as socio-cultural upbringing, are likely to play a greater role in the emergence and maintenance of supernatural belief than cognitive style.
  • Our studies here suggest that it is probably about time psychologists reconsider their understanding of belief as ‘natural’ or ‘intuitive’, and instead focus on cultural and social learning factors that give rise to supernatural ideas. Religious belief may be rooted in our society and culture (a sociocultural ‘meme’), rather than in some primitive gut intuition.

• the religiosity of academic scientists in the united kingdom: assessing the role of discipline and department status
  elaine howard ecklund et al. 2018
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12552

  warning: funded by the templeton foundation

  • In a new study, researchers from Rice University, Baruch College and West Virginia University find that scientists are indeed significantly less religious than the general population there.

    In addition, U.K. scientists at elite universities are more likely to never attend religious services than those at less prestigious schools. The study also indicates biologists are more likely to never attend religious services than physicists.

    "The Religiosity of Academic Scientists in the United Kingdom: Assessing the Role of Discipline and Department Status" utilizes data collected in a survey of biologists and physicists employed at elite and nonelite departments, as past research has suggested the distinction could be relevant in understanding differences in religiosity. The researchers were interested in how U.K. scientists, particularly elite scientists, compared to the general population with regard to religious beliefs.

    The researchers found that while only 18 percent of people in the U.K. said they do not believe in God, 45 percent of U.K. scientists responded the same way. In addition, the researchers discovered that scientists in elite departments (a categorization based on the number of publications per department, published department rankings and insider knowledge) are about twice as likely to never attend religious services than scientists in nonelite departments.

    Elaine Howard Ecklund, the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, professor of sociology, director of Rice's Religion and Public Life Program and the study's lead author, observes that that elite scientists represent the leading edge of the secularizing effects of science.

    "Individuals who are at the most elite institutions may disproportionately feel the cultural pressure to secularize," Ecklund said. "So, if those methods and mindset are inherently in conflict with religion, then these successful scientists would experience the greatest erosion of religious faith."

    Ecklund noted that such findings could also be a product of social forces rather than intellectual ones.

    "This distinction could have an impact on how the public views scientists, in a national context where some minority groups are bringing challenges to teaching evolutionary theory, for example," she said.

    "Elite scientists might express less religiosity because they assume that, as elite scientists, they are supposed to be or need to be less religious to fit a professional ideal," she added. "Because they might already be on the fringes of that professional ideal in the first place, nonelite scientists may feel less social and cultural pressure to further conform to it."

    Study co-author Christopher P. Scheitle of West Virginia University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology said this might also help explain why U.K. biologists are more than 2½ times more likely to never attend religious services than British physicists.

    "It is possible that U.K. biologists might be concerned that being seen as a more active participant in religion would violate some professional norm," said Jared Peifer, an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business.

    Ecklund added: "This norm might result from the history of public conflict surrounding issues like evolution and stem cell research, which are most clearly connected to the biological sciences."

    The researchers hope their work will help foster a better understanding of the social dynamics between religion and science beyond the traditional focus on the U.S.

    The study was funded by a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

  • abstract Studies examining the religiosity of academic scientists have often focused on comparisons with the general population, overlooking dynamics that could lead to religiosity differences within the scientist population. Expanding this literature, we present data from a survey of religiosity among scientists in the United Kingdom. We compare biologists and physicists employed at elite and nonelite departments, as past research has suggested that disciplinary and status divisions could be salient in understanding differences in scientists’ religiosity. We find that biologists in the United Kingdom are more likely than physicists to say they never attend religious services. Similarly, U.K. scientists in elite departments are more likely than those in nonelite departments to say they never attend religious services. We do not find significant differences between disciplines or status types for more private measures of religion. We argue that these patterns could result from perceived conflicts between public religious practice and meeting professional norms

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• causal decomposition in the mutual causation system
  albert c. yang et al. 2018
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05845-7

  • Inference of causality in time series has been principally based on the prediction paradigm. Nonetheless, the predictive causality approach may underestimate the simultaneous and reciprocal nature of causal interactions observed in real-world phenomena. Here, we present a causal-decomposition approach that is not based on prediction, but based on the covariation of cause and effect: cause is that which put, the effect follows; and removed, the effect is removed. Using empirical mode decomposition, we show that causal interaction is encoded in instantaneous phase dependency at a specific time scale, and this phase dependency is diminished when the causal-related intrinsic component is removed from the effect. Furthermore, we demonstrate the generic applicability of our method to both stochastic and deterministic systems, and show the consistency of causal-decomposition method compared to existing methods, and finally uncover the key mode of causal interactions in both modelled and actual predator–prey systems.

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• oneness beliefs and their effect on life satisfaction
  laura marie edinger-schons et al. 2019
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000259

  • "The feeling of being at one with a divine principle, life, the world, other people or even activities has been discussed in various religious traditions but also in a wide variety of scientific research from different disciplines," said Laura Marie Edinger-Schons, PhD, of the University of Mannheim and author of the study. "The results of this study reveal a significant positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction, even controlling for religious beliefs."

    The research was published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.

    Edinger-Schons conducted two surveys involving nearly 75,000 people in Germany. In the first survey, more than 7,000 participants, recruited as part of a cooperation project between the university and a company, were asked to respond to a series of statements designed to measure their belief in oneness (e.g., "I believe that everything in the world is based on a common principle" or "Everything in the world is interdependent and influenced by each other"). They were also asked to respond to items measuring other concepts associated with oneness, such as social connectedness, connectedness to nature and empathy as well as life satisfaction.

    Edinger-Schons found a significant correlation between scores on her oneness scale and the concepts associated with oneness, suggesting that it was a valid measure of the concept. More important, she also found that people with higher oneness scores reported significantly greater life satisfaction.

    To determine whether oneness scores were variable over time or a more fixed construct, the same survey was administered to the same group of people six weeks later. While a little more than 3,000 of them responded, Edinger-Schons still found that oneness beliefs had not changed significantly and therefore might be stable over time.

    "Obviously, oneness beliefs are more than a situation-specific feeling or mood," she said. "They rather seem to represent a general attitude toward life."

    Once again, she also found a significant correlation between oneness beliefs and life satisfaction. While being satisfied with life as a whole should be rewarding in itself, research does suggest that people with higher life satisfaction experience some additional benefits, such as increased academic performance in younger people and better health in old age, according to Edinger-Schons.

    In a second survey, involving more than 67,000 people, Edinger-Schons looked at whether oneness beliefs could explain individuals' life satisfaction over and above the effect of religion. Much research has been done on the association between religion and life satisfaction, but she wondered if there might not be something else at work. Specifically, her hypothesis was that oneness beliefs might explain peoples' satisfaction with life even better than religion.

    "I recognized that in various philosophical and religious texts, a central idea is the idea of oneness," said Edinger-Schons. "In my free time, I enjoy surfing, Capoeira, meditation and yoga, and all of these have been said to lead to experiences that can be described as being at one with life or nature or just experiencing a state of flow through being immersed in the activity. I was wondering whether the larger belief in oneness is something that is independent of religious beliefs and how it affects satisfaction with life."

    Participants came from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Protestant denominations, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. More than a quarter of those who identified their beliefs said they were atheist.

    While oneness scores did vary by religion (Muslims had the highest median score while atheists had the lowest), they were much better predictors of life satisfaction than religious beliefs.

    "I did not find it surprising that atheists have the lowest levels of oneness beliefs in the sample, but what surprised me was that oneness beliefs were actually very different across various religious affiliations, with Muslims having the highest levels," she said. "Also, when oneness beliefs were taken into account, many of the positive effects of religious affiliation on life satisfaction disappeared."

    Many people today practice yoga, meditation, action sports and other activities that aim at achieving a state of oneness or flow. Strengthening the more general belief in the oneness of everything has the potential to enhance peoples' lives and might even be more effective than traditional religious beliefs and practices at improving life satisfaction, Edinger-Schons said.

    As all the participants were from Germany, she noted that it is unclear if this effect would translate to residents of other countries and suggested more research would need to be done.

  • abstract The notion of being at one with a divine principle, life, the world, other persons, or even activities has been discussed in a wide variety of scientific research streams from different disciplines. It is the central goal of this article to empirically capture the notion of oneness beliefs as a time-invariant individual character trait and analyze its consequences. The results of 2 large-scale (N1 = 7,137; N2 = 67,562) empirical studies using nonstudent samples reveal that the oneness beliefs scale has good psychometric properties and correlates with related variables whereby being clearly discriminable from them. Intraindividual comparisons of 2 repeated measurements of oneness beliefs show a high correlation that is an indicator for the time-invariance and stability of the personality factor. The hypothesized positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction can be confirmed by applying cross-lagged regressions to test for the directionality of the effect (Study 1). The large nonstudent sample in Study 2 allows for an analysis of the effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction controlling for the religious affiliation of the participants. Results reveal a significantly positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction, even rendering the effect of some religious affiliations insignificant or negative.

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• circe
  madeline miller 2018

• the chaos function
  jack skillingstead 2019

09847

• not yet read

  • the wisdom of tibetan buddhism

  • the book of why: the new science of cause and effect
    judea pearl, dana mackenzie 2018

  • truth or truthiness: distinguishing fact from fiction by learning to think like a data scientist
    howard wainer 2014

  • causality: philosophical theory meets scientific practice
    phyllis illari, federica russo 2014

  • a call for revolution: a vision for the future
    dalai lama xiv 2018

  • the grand design
    leonard mlodinow, stephen hawking 2010

09947

• not recommended
  • conversations with god neale donald walsch
  • conversations with god, book 4: awaken the species
    neale donald walsch 2017

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• power of love
  jennifer rush/laura branigan
  Link: run-workflow

  • the whispers in the morning
    of lovers sleeping tight
    are rolling by like thunder now
    as i look in your eyes

    i hold on to your body
    and feel each move you make
    your voice is warm and tender
    a love that i could not forsake

    ☆for you’re my lady
    　and i am your man
    　whenever you reach for me
    　i’ll do all that i can

    though there may be times
    i might seem far away
    you need not ask for where i am
    as i am always by your side

    ☆repeat

    ★we’re heading for something
    　somewhere we’ve never been
    　sometimes we are frightened
    　but we’re ready to learn
    　about of the power of love

    the sound of your heart beating
    made it clear so suddenly
    the feeling that i can’t go on
    is light years away

    ☆,★repeat

    • 2006

  • helene fischer
    youtu.be/gZIWuQ_7JwI

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• what’s up?
  4 non blondes
  Link: run-workflow

  • twentyfive years of my life and still
    trying to get up that great big hill of hope
    for a destination
    i realized quickly when i knew i should
    that the world was made up of this
    brotherhood of man
    for whatever that means

    and so i cry sometimes when i’m lying in bed
    just to get it all out, what’s in my head
    and i, i’m feeling a little peculiar
    and so i wake in the morning and i step outside
    and i take deep breath
    and i get real high
    and i scream to the top of my lungs
    what’s goin’ on?

    ☆and i say hey–yeah–yeah–yeah, hey yea yea
    　i say hey! what’s goin’ on
    　and i say hey–yeah–yea–eah, hey yea yea
    　i say hey! what’s goin’ on

    oooh, oo! ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoo
    oo–ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoooo
    oooh! ooo–aah–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoo
    oo–ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoooo whats up?

    and i try, oh my god do i try
    i try all the time
    in this institution
    and i pray, oh my god do i pray
    i pray every single day
    for revolution

    and so i cry sometimes when i’m lying in bed
    just to get it all out what’s in my head
    and i, i’m feeling a little peculiar
    and so i wake in the morning and i step
    outside and i take deep breath
    and i get real high
    and i scream to the top of my lungs
    what’s goin’ on

    ☆repeat x2
    oooh, oo! ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoo
    oo–ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoooo–ahh–haa

    twentyfive years of my life and still
    trying to get up that great big hill of hope
    for a destination
    oo–ooh–hoo–hoo–hoo–hoooo

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• 残酷な天使のテーゼ
  高橋洋子

  • goose house
    Link: m.youtube.com/watch

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• make truth yourself, it's not something you can find.

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• appealing to a highest truth
  • Written law corrupt in western world of today, unwritten law corrupt in the eastern world of today
    if it is a law, the devious and cunning will find a way around it. if internalised then they cannot. what exists in our heads is more powerful than what exists outside. so it is with mo–tzu's argument that ghosts exist. seemingly pointless but it is actually true.
    Mo–tzu's appeal to ancestors is an appeal to highest truth. just like an appeal to god or logic or reason or utility or evolution.

00347

• what we can rely on
  • we're back to the kind of society where we can only rely on direct speech between friends, since all other communication can be intercepted and altered.
  • malicious people can access your phone just knowing your phone number
    Link: cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-hacking-your-phone

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• i love my friends and family dearly but It’s sad that I know I cannot rely on anyone, which is why I have an imaginary–big–sister complex. but why is wanting someone to rely on so vital to me? perhaps because I felt constantly threatened as a child? but the reality is that most people will have nobody to rely on, and this is what has shaped our society, our lives, and our past. will we let it shape our future too?
• is the solution to seek something to rely on, or is it to understand that “being able to rely on something” is an illusion, an illusion among many?

00147

• most of us are familiar with the idea of symptoms and root causes. but what if what we think are root causes are actually also symptoms? any luck we have with solving our problems is just that — luck — and we never actually deal with root causes, ever. this does not mean we do not lead productive lives, it just means our lives are not we believe them to be.

00047

• silver Ag (άργυρος arguros, grey, shining)
• margrethe
  • ascending to valhalla
  • heaven
• DG
• http link back to 00100