Believe it or not, I am skeptical of the existence of time. But wait, before you write me off as a loon, what I am skeptical of is not "change" -- what time is usually considered synonymous with and even responsible for. Rather, I doubt that time is substantive, that it exists independent of mass and energy.
To me, time is akin to temperature. Asking if time exists is like asking if temperature exists. Temperature is certainly a handy concept. It is how we refer to and measure an entity's average kinetic energy at the microscopic level. But temperature doesn't exist on its own. Roughly speaking, I believe the same is true for time. It is how we describe, coordinate, and measure events.
A consequence of this conclusion is that there is no such "thing" as the past or the future. As for the 'river of time,' it is but an illusion.
Curious? I invite you to check out the book.
A Turtle on the Pond of Time:
Philosophical Dialogues that Question the Nature of Time
Description:
Is time a fundamental element of our universe? Or is it a human invention—a tool used to measure and predict movement and change? In this colorful collection of short dialogues, Andrew sheds a fanciful yet skeptical light on the idea that time is a like a river, magically sweeping everything along with it. If asked to supply his own metaphor, the author would describe our universe as something of a roiling pond. Yes, there is movement and change, with “things” aggregating into existence and dissolving out. Yet to speak of previous and subsequent states of matter and energy as belonging to “the past” or “the future” is to create a fictitious depth to our universe. Bunnies measuring speed, herrings charting distance, crabs arguing over "the infinite"—this book is one part Saturday morning cartoon, one part invitation to contemplating the nature of time. Intelligent, entertaining and thought-provoking, A Turtle on the Pond of Time aims to draw minds into questioning the existence of time.
Those of you familiar with my An Almighty Alpha project are aware of my opinion that human beings are a primate species that shares innate, social instincts with the great apes. These instincts include a number that relate to social ordering, such as hierarchy and status. I've encountered two recent studies that, I believe, fail to take that insight into consideration. In doing so they overlook the chest of muscles beneath a more sophisticated yet superficial shirt. So to speak.
1. Why We Kick a Loser When He's Down.
FromWinning Makes People More Aggressive Toward the Defeated we learn,
A new study found that winners -- those who outperformed others on a competitive task -- acted more aggressively against the people they beat than the losers did against the victors.
"It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.
Hmm. To "really rub it in"? To me, the above reasoning runs hollow, if not off-track. In the animal world, after a heated battle, the dominant doesn't merely require the defeated to "cry uncle" and then the two walk away arm-in-arm as buddies who have just played a game of darts. In the animal kingdom, the dominant never lets up nor lets its guard down just after a heated battle. To do so would be . . . stupid. Status is serious business.
And for a loser to act aggressively toward to the victor . . . no, no, no, that is plain stupid. Unless of course you hold some sort of Freudian perspective in which emotional retaliation makes sense above all else. The stupidity holds true particularly if the loser and the victor are from the same social group, and wish to remain so. Instead, the loser needs to behave as if he or she has indeed lost and recognizes it. Otherwise, the loser risks continued aggression if not banishment from the group. Sure, at some other other time the loser my attempt to rise again. But to risk not only status but even group membership itself after a loss is a huge risk . . . to a social species.
The research authors note that,
. . . other research suggests that people are more aggressive when they feel powerful, as they may when they win a competition.
And that that I reply, "of course!" It would be insane for a 'loser' to act more aggressively after evidence that they are a weaker. In a sense, to aggress is to attempt to move up (or protect one's one position). To do this post-loss is not so smart. After a victory, well, maybe you are that strong!
2. Why the Spiritual Realm is "Up."
In my Almighty Alpha book-in-project I wrote a post, "Why Godliness is Up." In it I explored this question:
Could a hominid feel reverent about a deity beneath its feet? Or is something underfoot too easy to dominate, too easy to put under one’s heel and perhaps snuff out?
Why is the spiritual realm generally considered to be above our heads? Because we love the blue sky and twinkling stars? I don't think so. We tend to project the abode of "something greater" in the same direction as the verified geometrical relationship between the average lower-level manager and the corporate CEO. As much research into human behavior has shown, if you are tall, people instinctively view you as somehow greater.
In the clichéd version of a plebe meeting a spiritual guru, the guru sits tranquilly atop a mountain while the plebe struggles to ascend to that level. Whether or not the guru is a material entity or an imagined force. And so I found it curious that the science article,Why revelations have occurred on mountains? Linking mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience, made no mention of that relationship -- the "moving up means encountering the more powerful" element. Instead I read,
Prolonged stay at high altitudes, especially in social deprivation, may also lead to prefrontal lobe dysfunctions such as low resistance to stress and loss of inhibition. Based on these phenomenological, functional, and neural findings we suggest that exposure to altitudes might contribute to the induction of revelation experiences and might further our understanding of the mountain metaphor in religion.
Sure, slight oxygen deprivation might do funny things to the brain. But why climb the mountain in the first place? My answer: to move up. To brush elbows with the greats. To "hear them," and to elevate one's opinions in the eyes of those who have never ascended that high.
Maybe.
Perhaps I've just been reading too much about chimpanzee behavior. And thinking that were I covered with fur, I might look at a gorilla and think, "Oh look, there goes my distant cousin!"
[recycled material - first appeared here]
While some skeptics can be deservedly accused of disrespecting the unknown ("the" unknown -- as if it were a special, meaning-full monolith) by their overstatement of the known, I believe it is the woo-masters and true believers who most disrespect it. How? By not accepting the unknown for what it simply is: unknown. Instead, they project all sorts of highly speculative and even outright bogus ideas upon it. Because your explanation is missing, my explanation has validity.
Wrong. To respect the unknown is to tolerate the condition of not knowing. Period. To respect the unknown is to look at a fill-in-the-blank question and to leave it blank.
For an example of the right way to respect the unknown, consider this title to a science news release:
Exotic Life Beyond Life? Looking For Life As We Don't Know It
"Life as we don't know it." Brilliant. The article title expresses the recognition that any preconceptions about life and life forms may not be the best guide to finding something new.
Open-minded thinkers respect the unknown without falling into a state of slack-jawed credulity (if it can be expressed in words, it is worthy of serious consideration). They also try to refrain from knee-jerk nay-saying (that’s unusual and or new to me, therefore it has to be b.s.).
Our understanding of the universe has come a long way. But let's confuse real progress with a near-perfect knowing. There is so much more to learn, and some of what we think we understand may in fact be mistaken.
If you believe the headlines, we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. While I find it likely that more and more Americans qualify as gravitationally-challenged--at a startlingly young age, even--I'm less confident that it qualifies as an epidemic.
I'm even less certain that we should legislate one or a number of a solutions to the problem. Why? To fix something you must understand the nature of the problem. Is it diet, lack of exercise, too much soda, not enough salad?
Maybe it's parenting. And not of the hippo-see, hippo-do variety (sorry!). One recent study shared this finding:
[T]oddlers who did not have a secure emotional relationship with their parents were at increased risk for obesity by age 4 ½. [source]
Thankfully, the report included "how much" increased. While 13% of children in the lowest relationship-stress category were at an increased risk for obesity, the number was 26% for those in the highest relationship-stress category. Hmm. What data and collection method was this finding based upon?
The researchers looked at data from 900+ participants in the "Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a project of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Oh, they also "analyzed it." Meaning they looked for links between variables. And found one. And from there we get the jump to this statement:
This body of work suggests the areas of the brain that control emotions and stress responses, as well as appetite and energy balance, could be working together to influence the likelihood that a child will be obese.
Well, at least they qualify the assertion with "suggests."
Is stress part of reason why more children are tipping the scales as too heavy? In fact, during a podcast debate of the issue of whether or not the government should get involved in the "obesity epidemic," I heard one health official make this claim. And I doubted it then. Stress is a good catch-all scapegoat. And no one likes the thought of children in stress, so it may be a good way to elicit financial commitment to act . . . Yet it is really a causal variable?
I kinda doubt it. For stress can just as easily result in low weight. Or same weight. In my household of three we have one individual who absolutely can't eat a thing when stressed, one who eats a little less, and the third whose eating habits are unaffected. Of course, mine is a pitifully small sample size. Yet I haven't seen data that suggests a general tendency for stressed adults or children to eat more.
Sure, it could. But does it? Personally, I'd like to see cross-cultural studies on mother-child bonds and BMI measures. That might help.
Until we know more, I would hesitate to throw money at the problem. Sure, that may make us feel better, like we're doing something. But if the intervention misses the mark, we aren't helping anyone. On the contrary.
At this time I suspect that the increasing levels of obesity in our country may be the result of a sort of "perfect storm." Meaning that a number of variables acting in concert could be causing the increase in weight. But who knows. Maybe it's all viral. Meaning truly viral. Or something else.
Does texting cause a decline in language skills? From the headline to this ScienceDaily news release, you might think so:
Texting Affects Ability to Interpret Words
To affect (with an "a") means to influence. So it seems the new research has shown such an influence. But has it?
Here's what the researcher, Joan Lee, did to collect her data:
The study asked university students about their reading habits, including text messaging, and presented them with a range of words both real and fictitious.
And she found that -
those who texted more were less accepting of new words.
Which is certainly an interesting finding. Though I'd like to know just how less the "less accepting" was.
What this study revealed was a correlation between texting and language skills. For the "texting" variable was not manipulated to discover it's influence on language skills.
And yet a jump was made from correlation to causation. Such as when the report states:
texting has a negative impact on people's linguistic ability
Is the activity of texting really impacting people's linguistic ability? It may be. But from this study -- as far as I can tell -- that conclusion is premature.
Recent Comments