Monday, October 27, 2008
It's not just the friendly conversation...
...that makes coffeehouses such lovely places. Apparently, just holding a hot beverage will actually make you nicer to other people. Yet another reason to maintain my coffee addiction...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Why do people do things NOT for money?
First, I just want to address a few quick things, it beings my first blog post and all. The picture I have posted is something I came across today and found absolutely incredible. The smaller, brighter insect is a jewel wasp, and it is on top of a common cockroach. Apparently, some scientists recently discovered that these jewel wasps inject their larval young into the cockroach to grow. Simple parasitism, not that interesting. More interesting is what the jewel wasps do afterward: the wasps inject a small amount of venom directly into the brain of the cockroach (micro brain surgery), and this bit of venom works to inhibit the role of octopamine, a hormone that essentially gives the cockroach motivation to walk. So, the cockroach just sort of decides to sit down and relax, alive but zombified, while the larvae slowly eat away its insides. Gross, but very cool. Just the idea that organisms have evolved to actively manipulate the neural pathways and brain chemistry of others is absolutely incredible to me. There are a whole bunch of other cool examples here.
Second, the name: Ephemerata. Part of the inspiration for the name comes from the ephemeroptera (or mayflies). I study insect flight and they were probably among the earliest fliers. I've always liked their named, however, because it puts on an emphasis on the short, passing life span of individuals. At the same time, however, there is a coherent order and whole (the species and its continuation) to which each brief and ephemeral individual contributes. Order and continuity out of passing, discontinuous events.
Finally, my first bit of thinking to download: I watched a TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi today (By the way, TED.com, if you don't already know it, is a must). One of the basic questions from which his research began is why people do things that are not motivated by what we understand as common motives such as prestige, sexual endeavor, and of course money. It's kind of interesting and shocking questions in itself, I think. I find that our culture is very used to explaining most all actions in terms of one or another kind of self-interested motive. Perhaps the most outspoken proponents of this idea are certain cultural evolutionists and evolutionary biologists, who have inherited a darwinian focus on self-interest and "survival of the fittest." More on them later, however.
Mihaly's partial response to this question came from his studies of deeply creative and engaged people, especially artists. What he focused on was the state of mind during the creation of art, at the peak of engagement in some action. One common thread in the artists he studied was the feeling of a loss of self. An artist, a composer, said of this creative moment that "you are in an ecstatic state, to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist." Mihaly deemed this state as "flow."
The explanation given for the loss of self during this state of flow was, oddly, sort of a simple processing problem. The brain can only process so much information at once. Flow appears only to happen during tasks that present not only the highest challenge to the mind, but also when the mind has the most skills and preparation for these tasks, or essentially when the mind will be the most engaged. Since the brain can only process so much information, it simply can't devote RAM to thinking about stuff like "I wonder if I addressed appropriately for this party" or "Maybe if I make a good impression this guy can get me a job." Self-awareness is traded in for full engagement in some activity. Flow also seems to apply to all kinds of different mental activities, not just art. People can be in "flow" at work, while hunting or fishing, or apparently pretty much any other activity.
To tie this all in together, then, maybe people are drawn to these activities not because they serve any overtly self-serving purpose in themselves, but simply because the acts themselves are pleasing. A scientific explanation of why certain mental states can indeed be ends unto themselves.
Second, the name: Ephemerata. Part of the inspiration for the name comes from the ephemeroptera (or mayflies). I study insect flight and they were probably among the earliest fliers. I've always liked their named, however, because it puts on an emphasis on the short, passing life span of individuals. At the same time, however, there is a coherent order and whole (the species and its continuation) to which each brief and ephemeral individual contributes. Order and continuity out of passing, discontinuous events.
Finally, my first bit of thinking to download: I watched a TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi today (By the way, TED.com, if you don't already know it, is a must). One of the basic questions from which his research began is why people do things that are not motivated by what we understand as common motives such as prestige, sexual endeavor, and of course money. It's kind of interesting and shocking questions in itself, I think. I find that our culture is very used to explaining most all actions in terms of one or another kind of self-interested motive. Perhaps the most outspoken proponents of this idea are certain cultural evolutionists and evolutionary biologists, who have inherited a darwinian focus on self-interest and "survival of the fittest." More on them later, however.
Mihaly's partial response to this question came from his studies of deeply creative and engaged people, especially artists. What he focused on was the state of mind during the creation of art, at the peak of engagement in some action. One common thread in the artists he studied was the feeling of a loss of self. An artist, a composer, said of this creative moment that "you are in an ecstatic state, to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist." Mihaly deemed this state as "flow."
The explanation given for the loss of self during this state of flow was, oddly, sort of a simple processing problem. The brain can only process so much information at once. Flow appears only to happen during tasks that present not only the highest challenge to the mind, but also when the mind has the most skills and preparation for these tasks, or essentially when the mind will be the most engaged. Since the brain can only process so much information, it simply can't devote RAM to thinking about stuff like "I wonder if I addressed appropriately for this party" or "Maybe if I make a good impression this guy can get me a job." Self-awareness is traded in for full engagement in some activity. Flow also seems to apply to all kinds of different mental activities, not just art. People can be in "flow" at work, while hunting or fishing, or apparently pretty much any other activity.
To tie this all in together, then, maybe people are drawn to these activities not because they serve any overtly self-serving purpose in themselves, but simply because the acts themselves are pleasing. A scientific explanation of why certain mental states can indeed be ends unto themselves.
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