March 19, 2008
How we judge the thoughts of others
From Nature:
Brain division could help explain stereotyping, religious conflict and racism.
How do we know what another person is thinking? New research suggests we use the same brain region that we do when thinking about ourselves — but only as long as we judge the person to be similar to us. When second-guessing the opinions and feelings of those unlike ourselves, this brain region does not get involved, the new research shows. This may mean we are more likely to fall back on stereotyping — potentially helping to explain the causes of social tensions such as racism or religious disputes.
Neuroscientists led by Adrianna Jenkins of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, made the discovery when trying to deduce how the brain weighs up the thoughts of others. As Jenkins explains, judging how others are feeling is a valuable social skill, because we have no way of seeing inside another person's head. "How do we go about bridging the gap between our minds and others' minds?" Jenkins asks.
The answer seems to be that it depends on whether we feel we identify with that person or not, Jenkins says. In other words, how our brain handles the question of someone's attitude to anything, from traffic jams to impressionist art, depends entirely on how we feel we relate to them as a person.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 05:33 AM | Permalink
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In other news, scientists have made the remarkable discovery that the human hand is articulated into five separate digits, or "fingers." How our fingers handle to question of what to do with pianos, pens, baseballs and flatware depends entirely on how we feel we relate to these objects.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Mar 19, 2008 12:12:33 PM
Mirror neurons, empathy, and other phenomena that explain very little. But, because they are shrouded in the allure of neuroscience they seem to make some sense.
My sister-in-law, the Benedictine nun, is an "expert" on these things. She speaks to her class of eleven year olds about the "insula".
The kids and their parents love her for that!
Well, the final conclusion of this piece, that asks us to write about something in order to qualify it, is misleading --- What if one is dysgraphic or worse --- what if one just thinks?
Posted by: Felix E. F. Larocca MD | Mar 19, 2008 4:36:44 PM
It's always amusing to read the contortions of logic when people try to rationalise their morality, and de-rationalise a contradicting one. As if their morality is a universal truth. This article reads like a creationist theory.
To advance ones own genes is the foundation of all instinct. A consequence is the instinct to protect your territory, and its resources (such as females), from competing genes. Your brother shares a Y-chromosone with you (ignoring mutation), so you genetically benefit from his success. The further the deviation of the Y, the less tolerant you will be of another male in your territory.
These people should watch a nature documentary sometime. "Racism" is the full time occupation of many animals.
The moral objection of the globalist to racism seems to depend strongly on who is being racist. When the aboriginals want to preserve their race and culture it is not called racism. If it is moral to impose multiculturalism upon the Europeans, it should be equally moral to do that to the Aboriginal tribes. But recently the Australian government apologised for imposing globalism upon the Aboriginals, suggesting it had been racist. So it is racist or not racist to reject or impose multiculturalism, depending on your race.
This contradiction shows that the globalists' anti-racism is not born from logic or moral purity, but a justification of their chauvenistic contempt of people within their society, which is a social variation of racism.
Posted by: PeterJohn | Mar 19, 2008 5:16:37 PM
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