Our (uniquely correct) worldview?

Regardless of when or where we live, we inevitably perceive ourselves as the Middle Kingdom, and either we smile condescendingly at the mythmaking of other cultures or we go to war with them to force upon them our (uniquely correct) worldview. And if we are better at crafting weapons, we are generally able to persuade those we have physically conquered of the superiority of our myths over theirs.

Glad, John. (2008) "Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century." Hermitage, Schuylkill Haven. p.8

...and although John Glad's book/extended paper on eugenics commences in an innocuous fashion, and gently argues its way around the politics of eugenics, I must explicitly state that there are elements of his book that I don't agree with. Despite the fact that he begins the book with a seemingly sociologically sensitive statement, by the time we reach the final stretch of his argument we read, "Abortion should be actively promoted, since it often serves as the last and even only resort for many low-IQ mothers who fail to practice contraception." (p.79). So much of his argument hinges upon the concept of IQ as a measure of the right to survive. It disturbs me that we still have people who measure intelligence and potential in a number. Read with caution.

Steven Pinker: Race is skin-deep

Race is, quite literally, skin-deep, but to the extent that perceivers generalize from external to internal differences, nature has duped them into thinking that race is important. The X-ray vision of the molecular geneticist reveals the unity of our species.

And so does the X-ray vision of the cognitive scientist. "Not speaking the same language" is a virtual synonym for incommensurability, but to a psycholinguist, it is a superficial difference. Knowing about the ubiquity of complex language across individuals and cultures and the single mental design underlying them all, no speech seems foreign to me, even when I cannot understand a word. The banter among New Guinean Highlanders in the film of their first contact with the rest of the world, the motions of a sign language interpreter, the prattle of little girls in a Tokyo playground - I imagine seeing through the rhythms to the structures underneath, and sense that we all have the same minds.

Pinker, Steven. (1994) "The Language Instinct." HarperCollins, New York. p. 430

Brains - it's size that counts?

At the level of the whole brain, the remark that there has been selection for bigger brains is, to be sure, common in writings about human evolution (especially from paleoanthropologists). Given that premise, one might naturally think that all kinds of computational abilities might come as a by-product. But if you think about it for a minute, you should quickly see that the premise has it backwards. Why would evolution ever have selected for sheer bigness of brain, that bulbous, metabolically greedy organ? A large-brained creature is sentenced to a life that combines all the disadvantages of balancing a watermelon on a broomstick, running in place in a down jacket, and, for women, passing a large kidney stone every few years. Any selection on brain size itself would surely have favored the pinhead. Selection for more powerful computational abilities (language, perception, reasoning, and so on) must have given us a big brain as a by-product, not the other way around!

Pinker, Steven. (1994) "The Language Instinct." HarperCollins, New York. p. 363

What kids learn in virtual worlds

I am drawing these quotes from Doug Thomas, Annenberg School of Communication, who is cited by Stefanie Olsen in a special feature of CNet's news.com:

Knowledge is changing. It (used to be that it) was a set of facts, now it's not so much a 'what' but a 'where,' in which kids learn how to find information," Thomas said. "That's going to be the single most important skill--the ability to adapt to change.

It's strange that we need experts to point this out to us. The ability and willingness to be flexible is much more far-reaching than just this kind of tech-flex, though.

He added: "I wouldn't be worried if they're engaged and playing these games, I'd be more worried if they're not."

Again, it's stating the obvious, but we need voices like Thomas's to state what seems to be so broadly missed by so many: exclusion leads to lack of competence in a broad set of social skills. When we look at any kind of media literacy, isn't it safer and more socially responsible to actively get involved and teach kids how to be literate within these media? This is not just "digital literacy" in terms of being able to functionally navigate software, but the deeper literacy of being able to deconstruct texts at a philosophical and psychological level.

If you're a parent, I would be much less concerned about things like online predators or violence, then I would be about the conflation between consumption and consumerism and citizenship (in virtual worlds).

I predict that this last statement may raise the ire of some advocates, but it's being extreme in order to make a point. On the one hand we fear the issues that the popular media makes so blatant and so explicit, however, the popular media is quite often not so interested in making us wise, responsible consumers and citizens, because then the shareholders couldn't exploit us as much. Consumption of new media has a profound effect on molding the citizenry. Access to, and knowledge of, specific digital resources could become components of caste and class in this century.

Link to source article

A Martian's-eye-view of language

Chomsky's claim that from a Martian's-eye-view all humans speak a single language is based on the discovery that the same symbol-manipulating machinery, without exception, underlies the world's languages. Linguists have long known that the basic design features of language are found everywhere. Many were documented in 1960 by the non-Chomskyan linguist C. F. Hockett in a comparison between human languages and animal communication systems (Hockett was not acquainted with Martian). Languages use the mouth-to-ear channel as long as the users have intact hearing (manual and facial gestures, of course, are the substitute channel used by the deaf). A common grammatical code, neutral between production and comprehension, allows speakers to produce any linguistic message they can understand, and vice versa. Words have stable meanings, linked to them by arbitrary convention. Speech sounds are treated discontinuously; a sound that is acoustically halfway between bat and pat does not meaning something halfway between batting and patting. Languages can convey meanings that are abstract and remote in time or space from the speaker. Linguistic forms are infinite in number, because they are created by a discrete combinatorial system. Languages all show a duality of patterning in which one rule system is used to order phonemes within morphemes, independent of meaning, and another is used to order morphemes within words and phrases, specifying their meaning.

Pinker, Steven. (1994) "The Language Instinct." HarperCollins, New York. p. 237

Hobbes: What it is to lay down a right

What it is to lay down a Right
To Lay Downe a mans Right to any thing, is to Devest himselfe
of the Liberty, of hindring another of the benefit of his own
Right to the same. For he that renounceth, or passeth away his Right,
giveth not to any other man a Right which he had not before;
because there is nothing to which every man had not Right by Nature:
but onely standeth out of his way, that he may enjoy his own
originall Right, without hindrance from him; not without hindrance
from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one man,
by another mans defect of Right, is but so much diminution of
impediments to the use of his own Right originall.

Thomas Hobbes, "The Leviathan." Chapter XIV

Learning is caused by complexity in the mind

From Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct:

The idea that the human mind is designed to use abstract variables and data structures used to be, and in some circles still is, a shocking and revolutionary claim, because the structures have no direct counterpart in the child's experience. Some of the organization of grammar would have to be there from the start, part of the language-learning mechanism that allows children to make sense out of all of the noises they hear from their parents. The details of syntax have figured prominently in the history of psychology, because they are a case where complexity in the mind is not caused by learning; learning is caused by complexity in the mind. And that was real news.

Pinker, Steven (1994) "The Language Instinct." Harper Collins, New York. p.125

TEDTalks: Ross Lovegrove - Organic, "fat-free" design

I think instead of quoting anything directly from Lovegrove's talk I'll just embed this one, because the visual support material is so important. Lovegrove was already an inspirational figure - from the Walkman to the iMac (Frog Design), but this presentation genuinely grabbed me. Despite a somewhat nervous, awkward style, he discusses stripping back designs to what's timeless and essential - sentiments that sound like they're coming directly out of the mouth of Jonathan Ive, but Lovegrove seems to bring a more organic approach to his design philosophy.

All hail "Captain Organic!" - what an inspiration for design that's ecologically/environmentally/socially responsible.