2021 02 10 - lydgate/mindmeld GitHub Wiki
- Anki for poetry vs Readwise for poetry.
- Basic process: Downloading brain in wiki is annoying.
- Links
- Indents
- Use a markdown editor? HackMD
- McGilchrist: Potentially doing a salon with him
- Emailed Vas already
- McGilchrist starts from Ancient Greek civilization which is already problematic because we should be looking way earlier
- Jaynes starts from an archeology perspective, way before McG starts (with civilization, literature, culture -- which is game over for Jaynes)
- If the problems arise with the start of language, they can't have started in Ancient Athens. McGilchrist thinks that Athens is a mostly right-hemisphere society that needs more left
- But if we're interested in phylogenetic questions, like the creations of categories in the first place, McGilchrist just starts way too late for this
- Yaklovelian torque: Chimpanzees
- If macular vision is controlled by the left hemisphere then it must start way before any of the stuff from the last few thousand years
- McG believes he's arguing against Jaynes but he's actually providing more details/argument FOR Jaynes view
- He gets Jaynes wrong, in part because of this schizophrenia issue. He believes that schizophrenia is "too much left brain" but this in some ways seems unlikely.
- McGilchrist believes anger starts in the left hemisphere
- Left is about delaying/distancing/planning which allows instrumental violence in pursuit of ultimate ends
- Instrumental (proactive) Bivs reactive aggression is a huge distinction
- Rage can be distinguish anger
- Nietzsche: Punishment starts with reactive hitting children
- Jaynes has two modes:
- Bicameral, which ranges from everyone has direct access to gods all the way to mediated through strict hierarchies (like Egyptians)
- Consciousness which is really more like metacognition/introspective awareness
- Bicameral mind has its benefits: the long-view (not really right?) of building pyramids and such require the bicameral mind… so there are benefits (which McG totally denies)
- McG presents an almost uninterrogated right brain supremacy view
- How to steelman this argument?
- It's a polemic against a left-brain society, cognitive science, rationalism, Effective Altruism, demotion of emotion
- In the process of trying to level the right/left brain focus in science (generally), he gets Jaynes wrong and misses important distinctions and goes too far with what is good about right and bad about left
- Jaynes starts from an archeology perspective, way before McG starts (with civilization, literature, culture -- which is game over for Jaynes)
- Alpha male, hierarchy, high reactive violence. Rewards go to the strong.
- Sociability is rewarded but not as much as violence.
- Eventually, with coalition forming (tool use? Planning? language?) the tables turn. A critical threshold. Now sociability (planning to kill the alpha) is rewarded more than violence.
- This is an example of bottom-up pressure overcoming top-down. Introducing the chaos of empowering weaker males disrupts the previous order, and this leads to a revolution.
- Now any leader must not only appease but form stronger coalitions. It rewards planning and sociability.
- Probably also involves deception.
- Planned violence as cold and calculated, so it rewards left brain.
- Work at fleshing out differential susceptibility (orchid vs dandelion children) in relation to survival, socialibility, and resilience
- https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/03/book-review-evolutionary-psychopathology/
- Rule inversion: Thriving at extremes, like bullied kid who becomes CEO
- Orchid children are highly sensitive to their environment, especially to the quality of parenting they receive. If neglected, orchid children promptly wither--but if they are nurtured, they not only survive but flourish [ ] Isabela flesh out
- De Waal's work with Bonobos (vs chimps) and role of repair in group dynamics/cohesion and survival
- There's the role of tool-use as providing an opportunity for lesser males in the troop to form coalitions and become more powerful than the alpha; social capacities and processes become selected for with this innovation (tools) such that violence/aggression/physical power is no longer the most critical for selection
- BUT! De Waal's work (and others) with Bonobos but also chimps shows that "repair" or "reconciliation" processes (post violent outbursts/fights) are also key for determining the extent of closeness and collaborative effectiveness of a troop; those groups who could remain closely bonded (through processes like grooming), in turn, were healthier, happier, and stronger. And functioned better at the level of the group, but also in comparison to other troops who were less cohesive and therefore faired worse in inter-group fights
- Genes code for things that are and will change and these revolutions happen
- Timing matters: critical periods for transformations that allow for them or do nothing at all
- Part of the unique contribution of Bryan's work is to tell several example-stories of the Darwin account
- We need to think and maybe organize our thinking (at times) around the fractal nature and iteratively constraining properties and fractal nature of:
- (Physics time)
- (Chemistry time)
- Genetic evolutionary time
- Culutural time
- Ontogenetic time
- Each of the above levels of change across time are hierarchically embedded and partially constrained by the level above (there should be no circular causality because time's arrow goes in only one direction… presumably)
- Example of Janus-faces
- Chimpanzee aggression in order to repair
- Childhood development (apparently excitatory) is prompted/facilitated by inhibitory system
- Learning by pruning. Pruning as selection.
- GABA switches from excitatory to inhibitory
- Hemoglobin switches direction/polarity
- Dose-dependent responses? Alcohol/kratom in low/high dosage? Smokers modulating breath length?
- Recombination: individual as having to shift to get around various filters. Butterflies: different environment. Babies, adolescents.
- Where to start next time
- Continue with characteristics of revolutions
- Continue with timeline for humanity/civilization
- Critical periods
- Possible co-reading/watching
- Robert Sapolsky's lectures on biological
- Sapolsky: https://youtu.be/X9CnuCvfhEc
- BK: Look into Lamarck
- 6/2c1a Revolutions Break Bottlenecks
- 9/3g What Constitutes Abundance?
- 6/2c1b Revolutions Are recombinant
- 6/2c1c Revolutions make the Environment into Fuel - e.g., oxygen is the product of photosynthesis… until it's not - then used for cellular respiration that are far more efficient - results may be mixed though (not always positive tradeoff)
- 6/2c1d Revolutions occur when far-from-equilibrium states persist - Bitcoin and energy usage
- 6/2c1d1 Energy overcomes inertia?
- 12/226b1 They overcome inertia, are hard to get started
- 6/2c1e Revolutions overcome a barrier
- 6/2c1f Revolutions follow irruption/diaspora
- 6/2c1g Successful revolutions create new dependencies
- 1/109 Revolutions kick the ladder out from under themselves
- 6/2c1h Revolutions start in a protected sandbox
- 6/2c1i Revolutions operate in hypercycles
- 6/2c1j Revolutions often create unexpected losers
- 6/2c1k Revolutions change the nature of the game
- 6/2c1l Some revolutions occur when top-down pressure is reduced
- 6/2c1m Some revolutions occur when chaos is reduced
- 6/2c1n Revolutions create new identity
- 6/2c1o Human revolutions follow a pattern
- 6/2c1p Revolutions kill diversity
- 12/38c11 Revolutions produce a dying off period, but leave backups
- 6/2c1q Revolutions occur at phase transitions
- 6/2c1r Revolutions and arms races
- 6/2c1s Revolutions occur under pressure
- 6/2c1t Revolutions and scarcity
- 6/2c1u Revolutions require diversity
- 6/2c1v Revolutions stabilise out-of-equilibrium conditions
- 6/2c1x Revolutions follow vicious/virtuous cycles
- 6/2c1y Revolutions solve known & create unforeseeable problems
- 6/2c1z Revolutions homogenize/domesticate
- 6/2c1d1 Energy overcomes inertia?
- 12/226b1 They overcome inertia, are hard to get started
- 6/2c1e Revolutions overcome a barrier
- 6/2c1f Revolutions follow irruption/diaspora
- 6/2c1g Successful revolutions create new dependencies
- 1/109 Revolutions kick the ladder out from under themselves
- 6/2c1h Revolutions start in a protected sandbox
- 6/2c1i Revolutions operate in hypercycles
- 6/2c1j Revolutions often create unexpected losers
- 6/2c1k Revolutions change the nature of the game
- 6/2c1l Some revolutions occur when top-down pressure is reduced
- 6/2c1m Some revolutions occur when chaos is reduced
- 6/2c1n Revolutions create new identity
- 6/2c1o Human revolutions follow a pattern
- 6/2c1p Revolutions kill diversity
- 12/38c11 Revolutions produce a dying off period, but leave backups
- 6/2c1q Revolutions occur at phase transitions
- 6/2c1r Revolutions and arms races
- 6/2c1s Revolutions occur under pressure
- 6/2c1t Revolutions and scarcity
- 6/2c1u Revolutions require diversity
- 6/2c1v Revolutions stabilise out-of-equilibrium conditions
- 6/2c1x Revolutions follow vicious/virtuous cycles
- 6/2c1y Revolutions solve known & create unforeseeable problems
- 6/2c1z Revolutions homogenize/domesticate
- They are fragile at first (build momentum?)
- They modify their environment (same as fuel notion or different?)
- 12/38c3 Revolutions topple incumbents
- 12/38c4 Revolutionaries can't shape a revolution's effects
- 12/38c9 Revolutions create new playing fields
- 6/2c1w Revolutions create faster playing fields
- 12/38c10 Revolutions happen at different granularities
- 12/38c12 Revolutions produce a period of "new models"
- 6/2c1c5 Entropy bubbles
- 12/38c13 Adam's list of revolutions
Todo :: Intersubjectivity :: Co creation of the self
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