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Political Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:28:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: In The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior.

Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on.

The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning."

These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
Clip Source: daily.sightline.org
How is it that even smart people can ignore a pile of evidence that contradicts their deeply-held beliefs. Why is it I get a rush when I'm making fun of a politician I don't agree with -- even if it's his flubs or quirks I'm mocking, not necessarily his ideas?
According to the research of Drew Western, political partisans -- and especially the smart, well-informed ones -- not only feel better when their brains downplay contradictory political information, they actually get a little emotional "high" when the brain (unconsciously) rejects evidence that contradicts their deeply held political beliefs.
In a series of brain scans of political partisans asked to consider contradictory statements by the politicians they supported, Western found that the brain reverted to the comfort zone of its long-held biases -- and doing so actually made people feel good.

Tags: science, politics, neuroscience, psychology, brain, reason, extremism, bias, beliefs

Beautiful Black And White Photography

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:45:48 GMT

clipped by: carrerinyes

Clip Source: www.smashingmagazine.com

Beautiful Black-And-White-Photography

Expansion of Consciousness

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:33:57 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: brainmeta.com

We are the Universe conscious of Itself

Introduction

The evolution and expansion of consciousness is inevitable. With the expansion of consciousness comes new ways of seeing reality. Everything changes. You see things that you never could of conceived of before. Old philosophies and religions suddenly appear naive and give way to a far more profound understanding. Most religions and philosophies will not last long, simply because it is inevitable that a profound transformation in our consciousness, in our way of understanding and interacting with reality, is going to soon take place. It is inevitable because that is the direction that consciousness is headed.

A few of us have chosen to make consciousness our 'game', in all of its forms and degrees of intensity, as well as its neural basis, modification, manipulation, and expansion

Tags: consciousness

Photoshop and Illustrator Tutorials

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:31:39 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: www.noupe.com

1- Add a Fresh Splash to your Design

learn several techniques for enhancing a basic banner design for a product or servic

2- 10 Great Sites for GIMP Tutorials and Guides

10 fantastic sites for learning and using

“GIMP”

3- Trendy Geometric Lines Design Tutorial

create a group of vector based geometric lines at dynamic 45 degree angles, then follow the walkthrough to rough them up with brush textures in Adobe Photoshop

4- How To Make An Awesome Grungy Paper Texture From Scratch

5- Photoshop: Hand Drawn Design

how to create a hand drawn design in Photoshop using the blending mode and alpha channel

6- Sleek Phone Advertisement

will show you guys how to make a very interesting and sleek Phone Advertising wallpaper

7- Create an Energy Drink Ad Design

a flexible design solution that you can use to create one for an energy drink

8- Illustrate a Fun Magnify Zoom Icon

9- 15 Great Tutorials on Grunge Design Styles!

10 Important Differences Between Brains and Computers

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:34:22 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Although the brain-computer metaphor has served cognitive psychology well, research in cognitive neuroscience has revealed many important differences between brains and computers. Appreciating these differences may be crucial to understanding the mechanisms of neural information processing, and ultimately for the creation of artificial intelligence. Below, I review the most important of these differences (and the consequences to cognitive psychology of failing to recognize them): similar ground is covered in this excellent (though lengthy) lecture.

Difference # 1: Brains are analogue; computers are digital

Difference # 2: The brain uses content-addressable memory

Difference # 3: The brain is a massively parallel machine; computers are modular and serial

Difference # 4: Processing speed is not fixed in the brain; there is no system clock

Difference # 5 - Short-term memory is not like RAM

Difference # 6: No hardware/software distinction can be made with respect to the brain or mind

Tags: computers, brains, metaphors

Crossed (evolutionary) signals?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:43:05 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Animals depend on tyrosine phosphorylation to conduct a number of important communications between their cells, including immune system responses, hormone system stimulation and other crucial functions. These phospho-tyrosine signaling pathways utilize a three-part system of molecular components to make these communications possible.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

What do humans and single-celled choanoflagellates have in common? More than you'd think.

New research into the choanoflagellate genome shows these ancient organisms have similar levels of proteins that cells in more complex organisms, including humans, use to communicate with each other.

According to a paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, these findings help confirm choanoflagellates' role as an evolutionary link between single-celled and multi-celled organisms.

They also contend that these insights into the organism's genome may mean that the proteins used to help cells communicate may have other roles as well.

By analyzing the recently-sequenced choanoflagellate genome, the researchers discovered another similarity between choanoflagellates and most metazoans--their genetic code caries the markers of three types of molecules that cells use to achieve phospho-tyrosine signaling proteins.

Tags: evolution, dna, cell signalling

Philosophy week by week

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:12:24 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: etc.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Portal:Philosophy

Selected article by week

The current week is Week 27.

Week 27 view - talk - edit - history

Dualism is the view that two fundamental concepts exist, such as good and evil, light and dark, or male and female. Often, they oppose each other. The word's origin is the Latin dualis, meaning "two" (as an adjective).

Week 1

Anthropomorphism

Week 8

Futures studies, also called futurology, reflects on how today’s changes (or the lack thereof) become tomorrow’s reality. It includes attempts to analyze the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in order to develop foresight and to map alternative futures.

Week 9

A posthuman or post-human is a hypothetical future being whose capabilities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by current standards.

Week 11

In futures studies, a technological singularity (often the Singularity

Week 33

materialism i

Week 43

Atheism

Week 45

"what is the meaning of life?"

Tags: philosophy

CULTURAL EVOLUTION

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:35:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: We are finally starting to understand the patterns of culture change and the role of natural selection in shaping them. And since everything from weapons of mass destruction to global heating are the results of changes in human culture over time, acquiring a fundamental understanding of cultural evolution just might be the key to saving civilization from itself.

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

Does human culture evolve via natural selection, as our genes do?

Biologists have a pretty good idea of both how flies become resistant to DDT and how humans and primates have diverged over time. That's because the mechanism underlying these processes is the same. Using evolution we can understand how organisms generally change their stores of genetic information (DNA and RNA), alter their observable characteristics, and diversify.

We do not understand how cultures evolve nearly so well. The majority of human evolution does not involve changes in our DNA, but rather alterations in the gigantic library of nongenetic information, the culture, that our species possesses. This library is orders of magnitude larger than that of our genetic information, and the elements on its diverse shelves usually have meaning only in connection with other elements. Indeed, there has been a long, bitter debate about whether it is sensible even to use the term evolution to describe changes in culture

Tags: culture, evolution

North Pole without Ice

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:08:42 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: I look forward to the comforting data from real scientists which will refute such alarmist liberal mischief that has even fooled the CIA. I suspect these silly rumours began oin a bunker in Berlin.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

Tags: squirrels, mischief

Wonderful Kurt Vonnegut Interview

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:25:58 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Well worth the whole read...I loved Vonnegut.

Clip Source: cathy-edgett.livejournal.com

As war against Iraq looms, I asked Vonnegut, a reader and supporter of this magazine, to weigh in. Vonnegut is an American socialist in the tradition of Eugene Victor Debs, a fellow Hoosier whom he likes to quote: “As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

—Joel Bleifuss

You have lived through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Reagan wars, Desert Storm, the Balkan wars and now this coming war in Iraq. What has changed, and what has remained the same?

even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here. There were already all these games going on when I got here. … An apt motto for any polity anywhere, to put on its state seal or currency or whatever, might be this quotation from the late baseball manager Casey Stengel, who was addressing a team of losing professional athletes: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

Shift Happens

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:54:45 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug
clipper's remarks: Check the source for the slideshow or click to download

Clip Source: www.slideshare.net

This is a stylization of a slideshow originally created by Karl Fi more

Download file

Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:11:52 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: etext.lib.virginia.edu

ABSTRACTION IN THE FORMATION OF CONCEPTS

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

AGNOSTICISM

ALCHEMY

ALIENATION IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

ALIENATION IN HEGEL AND MARX

ALLEGORY IN LITERARY HISTORY

AMBIGUITY AS AESTHETIC PRINCIPLE

ANALOGY IN EARLY GREEK THOUGHT

ANALOGY IN PATRISTIC AND MEDIEVAL THOUGHT

ANARCHISM

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN SCIENCE

ANTINOMY OF PURE REASON

APPEARANCE AND REALITY

ATOMISM: ANTIQUITY TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

ATOMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

BAROQUE IN LITERATURE

THEORIES OF BEAUTY TO THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY

THEORIES OF BEAUTY SINCE THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY

BEHAVIORISM

BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS IN ANTIQUITY

BIOLOGICAL HOMOLOGIES AND ANALOGIES

BIOLOGICAL MODELS

BUDDHISM

C-D

“I am afraid we are not getting rid of god, because we still use grammar.”

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:10:55 GMT

clipped by: Efrain Alvarado
clipper's remarks: John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Clip Source: www.writers.net

Nietzsche does not believe in the existence of god. He wishes to devalue and undermine any belief that humanity has in a revered figure. It is difficult to get rid of the belief in god. One of the reasons for this is due to the use of grammar.

Due to grammar, words have changed over time and have taken on new meaning and additional usages. The previously mentioned “being,” which was once solely used as a verb, was adapted and used as a noun. Philosophers, existentialists and the like have used words that for each person meant something different.

Language has been used effectively to make convincing arguments and apparently has proven that god does exist. Nietzsche believes that god does not exist, but the belief in god is due to the clever use of the language by people to construe such an idea and then make it seem believable by making word connections and using certain words that make it seem as if the talked about “Idol” itself created the words to be spoken of and about them.

Tags: god, atheism, nietzsche, language

Physicists Produce Quantum-Entangled Images

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:33:03 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland (UM) have produced "quantum images," pairs of information-rich visual patterns whose features are entangled (linked by the laws of quantum physics).

Matching up both quantum images and subtracting their fluctuations, their noise is lower (so their information content potentially higher) than it is from any two classical images.

In addition to promising better detection of faint objects and improved amplification and positioning of light beams, the researchers' technique for producing quantum images may someday be useful for storing patterns of data in quantum computers and transmitting large amounts of highly secure encrypted information.

Tags: quantum, quantum entanglment, computing, images

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:12:11 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google's research director, offered an update to George Box's maxim: "All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."

Clip Source: www.wired.com

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don't have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don't have to settle for models at all.

Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.

Tags: theory, data, scientific model, computation cloud, google