Correlation is Not a Cause (CINAC)

One interesting (off topic) thing about CINAC thinking is that it breaks down in basic physics.  We think of causation with an implicit forwards time direction, for example, we wouldn't say that eating a cake tomorrow can't cause it to be baked yesterday.

However, this asymmetry of time doesn't apply at the particle level where interactions are symmetric in time.  An electron accelerates sideways when it absorbs a photon; later it might emit a photon and accelerates the other way, just like rolling the film backwards.  When we speak of cause and effect  and assume that time runs only one way but at the micro level since interactions are symmetric, causality itself becomes hard to pin down. 

At the macro level things don't work like that: shattered vases don't unshatter.  Heat always flows from hot to cold.  Even though many individual particle collisions will transfer energy against the gradient, the net effect over zillions of of interactions is for heat - molecular kinetic energy - to always flow down the gradient.

Some physicist have looked to the micro level symmetry for an explanation of entanglement ("spooky action at a distance") where two particles interact then move apart with some indeterminate properties.  When a property is measured on one particle a corresponding property is instantaneously changed on the other particle even though the particles may have moved a long way apart, ie, without any possibility of normal information exchange.  A mooted explanation is for the "cause" to propagate backwards in time from the measured particle to the original interaction then forwards to the second particle.  This contradict our intuitions of causes occurring before their effect but this may be ok since our idea of cause and effect is generated in our macro structure, based on the intuitions gained from in the macro world where time "flows", and only one way.

(comment at Mindblog)

Straw Dogs

"Heaven and Earth are heartless
treating creatures like straw dogs".
-- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 5

Straw dogs were used as ceremonial objects in ancient China.

Su Ch'e comments "Heaven and Earth are not partial. They do not kill living things out of cruelty or give them birth out of kindness. We do the same when we make straw dogs to use in sacrifices. We dress them up and put them on the altar, but not because we love them. And when the ceremony is over, we throw them into the street, but not because we hate them."

Sam Pekinpahs movie "Straw Dogs" takes its title from this.  It ends up with a number of bodies scattered around the home.

Dutton/Carrol on Darwinian literary theory

Interesting review from Denis Dutton of Joseph Carroll's Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature.

Taster:

Carroll holds that the only way to attain a general theory of literature is through an account of human nature that builds from the ground up, from the most basic conditions for the evolution of the human species. A Darwinian literary theory first needs a Darwinian psychology. Once we have a basic Darwinian psychology in place, we can see that the narrative proclivities of human beings, far from being an incidental by-product of the evolved mind, are central to some of its most human functions. The structures of basic motives and dispositions are what would be appropriate for a species, as Carroll describes it, that “is highly social and mildly polygynous, that displays concealed ovulation, continuous female receptivity, and post-menopausal life expectancy corresponding to a uniquely extended period of childhood development, that has extraordinary aptitudes for technology, that has developed language and the capacity for peering into the minds of its conspecifics, and that displays a unique disposition for fabricating and consuming aesthetic and imaginative artefacts.” Such a list alone, he contends, would make it impossible to imagine a blank-slate view of the mind, in which the mind evolves in a vacuum, goes onto produce culture, which then gives back to the mind all content and structure. 

http://denisdutton.com/carroll_review.htm

Supernatural Policing

Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray examine the idea that belief in supernatural agents is adaptive because these agents are punishers: supernatural policeman if you will. This policing can have two effects. First, belief in supernatural punishment can enhance within group cooperation. Second, it can reduce cheating or free-riding.

However :

Aguair and Cronk observe that judgmental gods or policing spirits are historically recent: “Considerable evidence exists that such beliefs are rare among hunter-gatherer, smallscale, and egalitarian societies, and common among food producing, large-scale, and hierarchical societies.”

We cannot simply assume that because supernatural watchers-punishers exist and have utility in post-Neolithic or complex societies, the same was true during the Paleolithic. Although the ethnographic and ethnohistoric hunter-gatherer record is an imperfect guide, it strongly suggests that supernatural watching-punishing is a recent invention.

Teratoma associated encephalitis

Health Report 2011-06-06:

A mysterious and often life threatening disease affects the lives of mostly young women. These patients often end up in psychiatric hospitals misdiagnosed or in intensive care units with bizarre behaviour and metabolic meltdown. It's been discovered that these patients had a benign tumour in the ovary called teratoma. A teratoma can contain teeth, hair and most significantly for the women suffering from this condition, brain tissue. The body sees this tumour like a foreign type of tissue and mounts an attack, an immune response against these brain cells that are in the tumour. However, the immunological system is also attacks the brain of the patients.

The Artist of Bullshit

“If you can lie, you can act,” Brando told Jod Kaftan, a writer for Rolling Stone and one of the few people to have viewed the footage. “Are you good at lying?” asked Kaftan. “Jesus,” said Brando, “I’m fabulous at it.”

http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/ian-leslie/are-artists-liars?page=full
Book:  Born Liars: Why We Can’t Live Without Deceit Ian Leslie