Your Morals Depend on Language

If words matter, then it naturally follows that the language matters, too. Especially when it comes to solving a moral dilemma. That’s according to a study published in April called “Your Morals Depend on Language, ” authored by University of Chicago psychology professor Boaz Keysar and Albert Costa, a psychologist at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University. When we spoke to them last spring, the told us that our decisions can change radically depending on whether you reach them in your native tongue, or in a second, learned language. In his research, Boaz used a classic social science hypothetical: imagine you are standing on a footbridge. An out-of-control trolley passes underneath, hurtling toward 5 people who will die, unless you stop the trolley by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. A very large man stands beside you. Do you sacrifice him to save the other 5? Source: On the Media, Bob Garfield, December 19, 2015

Whites Perceptions of the Terms Black and African American

Last month, shamed by press reports, the United States Army abruptly removed outdated language from regulations governing the ethnic terminology. Until Nov. 6, 2014, it was acceptable to describe African-Americans as negroes -- much as it was in civilian life, until about 40 years ago. The new policy limits the acceptable terms to “black” or “african american,” corresponding to contemporary usage. But we are not yet in a post-racial society, and language is still freighted. A new study published by The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology conducted by Emory University’s Erika Hall identifies significant difference of public perception based on which of the widely acceptable terms is applied. Erika welcome to OTM. White Americans perceive the term 'black' more negatively than 'African-American.' We found this in a criminal study. We found this in a media study and also in an employment study. SOURCE: Erika Hall, Emory University

Lapis lazuli (blue pigment)

Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Sar-i Sang mines[1] and in other mines in the Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan as early as the 7th millennium BC,[2] Lapis beads have been found at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania.[3] It was used for the eyebrows on the funeral mask of King Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC).[4]

Neuromorphic Engineering

Neuromorphic engineering, also known as neuromorphic computing,[1][2][3] is a concept developed by Carver Mead,[citation needed] in the late 1980s, describing the use of very-large-scale integration (VLSI) systems containing electronic analog circuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system. In recent times the term neuromorphic has been used to describe analog, digital, and mixed-mode analog/digital VLSI and software systems that implement models of neural systems (for perception, motor control, or multisensory integration). A key aspect of neuromorphic engineering is understanding how the morphology of individual neurons, circuits and overall architectures creates desirable computations, affects how information is represented, influences robustness to damage, incorporates learning and development, adapts to local change (plasticity), and facilitates evolutionary change. Neuromorphic engineering is a new interdisciplinary subject that takes inspiration from biology, physics, mathematics, computer science and electronic engineering to design artificial neural systems, such as vision systems, head-eye systems, auditory processors, and autonomous robots, whose physical architecture and design principles are based on those of biological nervous systems.[4]

Vivid Dreaming, Stephen LeBerge

Vivid dreaming is when you become aware, while dreaming, that you are in fact, dreaming. It's rare but many have had the experience. In essence, while being unconscious, you become conscious of the fact you are dreaming. You are now both conscious and unconscious. How's that work? Stephen LeBerge has spent his life trying to understand vivid dreaming. Vivid dreaming gives us an unusual peak into the fabric of reality and consciousness. "Consciousness is what makes consciousness interesting," says LeBerge "Why should realizing something isn't real make it more real," he asks, yet that is the feeling we get when realizing a vivid dream. Are mental and physical spaces the same, or entirely unrelated? If I'm sitting down with you talking there are three realities. My experience in my mind, your experience in your mind and the physical world. Which is real? If you can become conscious of yourself dreaming while asleep, can you wake up during waking life too? Imagine a snowflake, a unique individual in a world of billions, falling into a pond. Is is scared, worrying about the end of life, annilalation? But the snowflake may think, "I'm not just one frozen molecule of water. I am water."

Sleeping with the Enemy

Most of us have between 1-4% Neanderthal in our DNA. I have 2.1%. At least according to 23&Me and National Geographic.Paabo is the guy who figured all this out. See Elizabeth Kolbert's New Yorker article called Sleeping with the Enemy for details. It seems we slept with them before we eliminated them. Not just Neanderthals, Denisovans and thr Hobbit group, Homo floresiences. How we (Homo Sapiens) we're able to conquer and survive is a mystery. We rocked the planet, but no one can put their finger on quite the reasons for it.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Cauvet)

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southern France is a cave that contains some of the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life.[1] It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River, in the Gorges de l'Ardèche. Discovered on December 18, 1994, it is considered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites. The cave was first explored by a group of three speleologists: Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet for whom it was named. Chauvet (1996) has a detailed account of the discovery. In addition to the paintings and other human evidence, they also discovered fossilized remains, prints, and markings from a variety of animals, some of which are now extinct. Further study by French archaeologist Jean Clottes has revealed much about the site. The dates have been a matter of dispute but a study published in 2012 supports placing the art in the Aurignacian period, approximately 30,000–32,000 BP.

Umwelt

In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal."[1] The term is usually translated as "self-centered world".[2] Uexküll theorised that organisms can have different umwelten, even though they share the same environment. Basically, it is the idea that an organism, like homosapiens, can only perceive a part of the world, reality, the part they are biologically designed to perceive. Take light, which exists as ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray, our eyes can only perceive less than one trillionth of the spectrum. There are whole realities we can't perceive.

For Good People to do Evil Things Requires Religion

Quotations related to Steven Weinberg: "'Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."[14]

The Anthropic Principle

In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle (from Greek anthropos, meaning "human") is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. In other words, because a species evolved that can contemplate the meaning of life, the structure of the Universe, isn't is logical that the Universe is designed to account for intelligent life? Did a self-reflecting, contemplative species evolve to the point of understanding the complex world it lives in and yet the Universe is taken by surprise this happened. The anthropic principle has given rise to some confusion and controversy, partly because the phrase has been applied to several distinct ideas. All versions of the principle have been accused of discouraging the search for a deeper physical understanding of the universe. The anthropic principle is often criticized for lacking falsifiability and therefore critics of the anthropic principle may point out that the anthropic principle is a non-scientific concept, even though the weak anthropic principle, "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist",[6] is "easy" to support in mathematics and philosophy, i.e. it is a tautology or truism. However, building a substantive argument based on a tautological foundation is problematic. Stronger variants of the anthropic principle are not tautologies and thus make claims considered controversial by some and that are contingent upon empirical verification. 

Today I was thinking

Is is possible for the universe to have created itself or for it to have always existed? Yes. The other primary explanation is that God created the universe and that God always existed. Nothing created God, God just always was. So, let's call God A. A created the universe but A was not created, A always existed. Now let's replace A with B. B created the universe but B was not created, B always existed. So, if it's possible, or at least believable by some, that A always existed, it should follow that it is possible that B always existed.(God always existed and needs no explanation for his creation or The Universe always existed and needs no explanation.) In other words, maybe the answer to the question: "How could something be created out of nothing?" is that "something" is the norm and "nothing" would be unusual. There has always been "something", whether it's God or some sort of Universe. If "Where did God came from?" doesn't require an explanation, then neither should "Where did the Universe come from?" Fair's fair.