What makes a social animal.

Brain Cells for Socializing | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine:

"Allman likes to show a clip from a documentary about a group of African elephants that adopted an orphaned calf. When the baby elephant falls into a water hole, the matriarch quickly marches in, followed by the others. Together she and a second female use their tusks, trunks and legs to free the calf from the muck. Another animal paws at the steep bank with its foot, building a ramp the youngster uses to climb to safety. 'It's really remarkable,' says Allman of how the elephants rapidly sized up the crisis and worked together to save the baby. 'It's a very high sort of functioning that very few animals are able to do. And,' he adds with a chuckle, 'humans can do it only on good days.'"

An amazing article on a particular high speed nerve cell in the brain that seems to facilitate the recognition of social signals in a few highly social intelligent species like higher primates, elephants, whales, dolphins, and orcas.

Determining moral actions

Belief Corner: Deciding Whether Something is Moral:

"In a moral crisis situation there is no time for analysis. The moral sense of the person will determine the moral choice.

Moral sense is very similar to language. We get the basics and the ability to function morally from our parents and/or care givers as infants and toddlers. The genetic imperative is to make mom smile. As the child grows and joins social groups other than family the moral sense will be refined by what works to keep the paddle off the butt, or other disincentive for anti-social actions. Compliance with the mores of the peer group, that is avoiding ostracism guides pre- and early adolescence and moral development may end there for many. Religion driven morality generally results in such stagnation of moral development.

As the individual matures and makes choices about social connections the morality of the chosen social group will normally be accepted with varying degrees of thoughtfulness and analysis, but once the moral sense is conditioned it will guide actions in all moral situations. Post crisis analysis may result in the modification of the moral sense but action in all cases is determined by the developed moral sense at that point."

Rob Paterson's "Eternal Reflections"

Compose Mail - Yahoo! Mail: " Re. Rob Paterson's Eternal Reflections

If this is not in your [Volti] 30 year recording project, it must be. It is an incredibly moving piece for young and old alike. Colin being the young and Carlin being the old. I don't know where Mary Rose fits in. It has the makings of a modern Choral Standard, Volti should do what you can to help it along the path. Thank you for the commission and the first performance, but the commercial recording will put the icing on the wonderful cake you made."

One would think that three texts on eschatology, tragedy, and death would make for a rather dismal piece of music. But Rob has created one of the most moving and beautiful compositions it has ever been my pleasure to hear. A poignant pleasure to be sure, but aren't those really the best kind?

If you ever get a chance to hear this work, or Volti does record it, let nothing get in your way. Hear it!

Edited to reflect title change by the composer. Even though he ignored my suggestions I was honored to be a part of the process.

Yosemite Springs BB

Yosemite Springs BB - conventionally Reviews, Cheap Rates, Deals conventionally - Coulterville | coffee shopcoffeemaker: "Yosemite Springs BB - conventionally Reviews, Cheap Rates, Deals conventionally - Coulterville
5 月 18th, 2009 · コメントはまだありません

I am a swotter and homelessness to in good likeness pennies wherever I can. mostly Yosemite Springs is frightful because you breath at a wonderful ritzy chair to set-back in restitution consent the unusually judge as a motel cubicle quarters. mostly The rations is absolutely exclusive cooked, the towels are muted, there is DirecTV and DVD players in each cubicle quarters and there is a steam flood so you can get rid of yourself of all of the confidential data you aggregate while hiking."

Absolutely brilliant automatic translation. Makes me want to jump in the car and Go! But instead I will probably spend the day trying to scrut the inscrutable Japanese mind to put together an idiomatic English translation.

Is forcing people to live ethical?

Growing Old with Autism: The Silent Struggle - TIME: "Noah, my younger brother, does not talk. Nor can he dress himself, prepare a meal for himself or wipe himself. He is a 42-year-old man, balding, gaunt, angry and, literally, crazy. And having spent 15 years at the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., a state facility, Noah has picked up the con's trick of lashing out before anyone could take a shot at him.

Noah's autism has been marked by 'three identified high priority maladaptive behaviors that interfere with his adaptive programming. These include banging his head against solid surfaces, pinching himself and grabbing others,'"

Related: From The Responsibility Project "An Alzheimer patient has wandered off again. What do you do?

I am beginning to wonder if we are being cruel to these people by forcing them to stay alive. The Responsibility Project would not allow my comment: "Maybe he is wandering off to find a place to die." Maybe the Autism patient is banging his head against the wall in an ineffective suicide attempt.

Just because the body is capable of supporting life are we being ethical in forcing it to do so in the absence of informed consent of the mind controlling that body? There are of course difficult issues of determining intent from a damaged mind, but is it not ethically presumptuous to say the head banging or the wandering off is not a suicide attempt, or at the very least an attempt to end the lack of control over one's life?

I have given explicit instruction to my family that if the genetic dementia expresses itself in spite of the medical preventative measures, they are to find a care facility near the back country in the Sierra, Hetch Hetchy, by preference with explicit instructions not to limit my wandering off. If some day I don't return they may assume that I was careless and provided lunch for a bear. It wouldn't offend me in the least to be recycled in that manner.

My family on my mother's side has a tradition of "Turning their face to the wall" when they decide their will to live is no longer present. Not a bad choice, and I am sure I could do it when necessary, but I would much rather wander in the wilderness on my last day and "Turn my face to the cliff." Sure I will feed a wild animal instead of a crematory, but the wild animal won't care or know the difference between me and any other dead or dying large animal.

Abiogenesis

Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life - NYTimes.com:

"An English chemist has found the hidden gateway to the RNA world, the chemical milieu from which the first forms of life are thought to have emerged on earth some 3.8 billion years ago.

He has solved a problem that for 20 years has thwarted researchers trying to understand the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. It will also mean that for the first time a plausible explanation exists for how an information-carrying biological molecule could have emerged through natural processes from chemicals on the primitive earth.

The author, John D. Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester, likened his work to a crossword puzzle in which doing the first clues makes the others easier."

I like his theory as it takes place in the warm puddles that life like us should start in. The high energy source is UV rather than geothermal which again makes more sense for surface life. A major step in the right direction as it gives a plausible pathway to RNA.

Abiogenesis

The blue roads of thinking: Thinking about Death.: "Have you ever thought about How Life on earth ever began?"

I am a chemist by training if not inclination anymore, and I have no problem at all with natural abiogenesis. Organic molecules that can hook up will and will try every way possible. (Kind of like some people I know.) The fact (observed) that ACGT/U formed a stable and self-replicating combination is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that once the replicator was formed that it used up all the ACGT and U that was available making more replicators. Nor that once formed the replicators "got busy" making more efficient replicators.

If it makes you feel good to think that God made the first replicator and threw it into the ACGTU soup to make more replicators be my guest. Or is God the first simple RNA molecule and jumped into the ACGTU soup to make more RNA in Herm image? Then like the Sorcerers Apprentice just couldn't turn off all the multiplying and changing stuff that resulted. And finally when humans came around Hesh got so pissed off Hesh flooded the world to try to start over. Didn't work obviously.

Thinking about Death.

Beliefnet Community > Thread - My Story: Atheist by Necessity, not by Choice!:

"Personally I find that the probability of an afterlife is close to zero is quite liberating. As Forrest Church says in Love and Death, love survives death and those we have loved and made a difference in their lives will love us in return and as we think of those who have died with love and respect those who follow us will pay it forward with the same love and respect. They will tell stories about me to the next few generations and maybe someone will learn something. I do my best in life to build a Legacy that will be worth telling stories about.

Just recently I passed some advice from my father, a great athlete, to his great grandson who will probably not be a great athlete but who is trying to learn a sport for fun. Maybe my grandson didn't even listen, but the time I spent with the memories of my father and the love I still gave and received from him makes his death merely a release from the pain of the cancer that took his life."

Atheist divorce

The Bright Line...:

Still, I think there's more to it [Why there is less divorce among atheists.] More than the lack of religion to not fight about.

"Actually there is. Since atheists do not have a prepackaged moral system handed to them 'From God' they need to have figured out a moral system that works in the society that they find themselves in. Relationships with others in the society will necessarily be an important part of that morality. In all important relationships a functioning atheist will have a good idea of the reciprocal responsibilities in the relationship and be comfortable with them or will not enter into the relationship.

Most atheists I know are almost prudish when it comes to sex, and won't even think of procreative sex without a stable relationship to support it. Even 'Recreational sex' is approached with extreme care due to the implied commitments involved.

It is real hard for an atheist to hide from God and sneak a push in the bush. The atheist's moral judge always knows exactly what hesh is doing and whether it is right or wrong. And if it is wrong the atheist can't just nail it to the cross and forget it. If it is wrong, it has to be fixed."

This does not mean that divorce is not common, but it is generally later in life and usually after children are independent if there are children involved. An important part of this is that much of the married atheist's society revolves around the family, and there is little emotional support for those who choose to leave the family. In a church the congregation will choose sides, but there will always be emotional support for the "Sinner" in the broken relationship. An atheist does not have this support, so the justification for the break up has to be pretty strong to avoid losing a good chunk of one's friends and acquaintances.

Lenore Skenazy -- Quit Treating Parents Like Babies - washingtonpost.com

Lenore Skenazy -- Quit Treating Parents Like Babies - washingtonpost.com:

"And here's my favorite recommendation from a book of 'Baby Must-Haves' (yes, a 200-plus-page volume on items you simply must buy unless you want your baby to be seriously deprived): 'You'll get more bang for your buck with a toy that can be played with in more than one way -- for instance, a push toy that can also be pulled.'

Now, you've got to feel sorry for the poor writer who had to come up with something -- anything -- to say about a pull toy. But can you think of a push toy that can't be pulled? Can you think of any toy that can't be pulled, besides a cranky daddy trying to watch SportsCenter?"

I guess these are for those who don't have a pastor to guide them in these and other areas of their lives that are on a similar level. Need help in socializing your child? Bring herm to our Cradle Service where only our brand of God will infect your child's mind. As the Jesuits point out by the time hesh is 10 we will own him. It works for any cult.

The purpose of Death.

Beliefnet Community > Thread - Evolution makes no sense.:
"Death is Nature's way of telling you you flunked out."

Would Jesus refute theTelevangelists?

Beliefnet Community > Thread - Human Dignity, Good and Evil:

Yes, it does matter [when Paul lived], because people that knew Jesus were still alive, and therefore would have attempted to correct him or refute him, if his info about Jesus was incorrect.
El Cid

"Paul was creating a cult based on Jesus Christ, not Jesus. The only relationship of Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus Christ was the hijacking of his name and charisma. The three Synoptic Gospels which were written after Paul, are a systematic and largely successful exercise in correcting and refuting Paul.

It is impossible to read Paul with the synoptics open in three other bibles and find anything in the synoptics that supports anything in Paul. It is almost a trivial exercise in reading comprehension to find a refutation of Paul's misanthropy and misogyny in any random passage from the words of Jesus in one of the three gospels. If you do it in the other direction that is read the synoptics and try to find anything at all in Paul's misanthropy and misogyny that relates to the Jesus you find in the synoptics, you will find absolutely nothing.

I find the evidence for the existence of Jesus, the itinerant preacher and entertainer, persuasive. He would be a great televangelist today and as then he would refute all the Pauline garbage preached by the followers of his competitor in the religious leader industry."

What would Jesus do? If he were alive today would he have a television ministry based in a megachurch in Marin County? It sure wouldn't be in LaLa Land. Would he be regaling against the preachers of hate for your neighbors of the wrong religion, color, or sexual preference? Would he be successful?

I think the answers to all of the above would be yes. We are seeing a return to the gospels, particularly the Two Great Commandments in many local congregations in many of the big denominations. Certainly the bigots are the loudest and sell the lead in and follow up ads and so are supported by the networks or at least the cable companies. Someone foaming at the mouth at a gay person's funeral will get a spot on the news just like a train wreck. All the news companies care about is eyeballs, they don't care if the eyeball is blurry from booze or not, well, they do boozers buy. Train wrecks sell ads, and any train wreck will do. An emotional train wreck is as good, or maybe better than a steel one. They can milk it longer.

Why do I ask so many Why's?

Thread - Is there a moral position without God?:

"The three year olds I know would never accept the cop out of Goddidit. They want to know why in terms they can understand and wrap their rapidly growing minds around. I would feel that Goddidit would be a real damper on that vibrant inquisitiveness that is the birthright of all humans."

Since they weren't stunted by Goddidit most of the kids I dealt with were 2 or so when they got into the Why?'s, and many of them never got over it. One I know got the nickname of Rikki for Rikki Tikky Tavi because she always had to "Run and find out." I suspect that after 30 odd years she is still running and finding out. No one ever told her she had to ask God's permission to do so.

The title of the post is reputed to be an actual question of J'Carlin at 2. (The "J" was more important then which is why it is part of J'Carlin). I hope it is true. I want to know everything and I want to know why about everything. I'll never get there but I will try.

Moral Standards

Is there a moral position without God?:

"Morals are not beliefs they are behavior patterns bred into us over millions of years of being dependent on our social group for survival. Doing what we must for the good of the social group is the beginning and the end of moral behavior. If the social group is religious, doing what the mediator says God wants is part of the package. Many of us have a more cosmopolitan social group see Appiah, Cosmopolitanism - Ethics in a World of Strangers and the insular and usually xenophobic morality of religious groups just does not work for us."

Atheism for Theists

Thread - Can there be a moral position without God?:

"Many have a hard time with atheism as they try to map it into a belief system. It is not a belief system, it is simply a way of managing life without a deity to blame things on. Life itself is far from random, natural selection insures that only advantageous changes are conserved. Life is a series of events, most predictable but some indeed random that must be dealt with in a reasonable and for most atheists a rational manner. An atheist will waste no time trying to second guess a deity or try to get the deity to intercede, hesh will deal with events as they are for good or for bad and try to emerge with life and integrity intact."

What Makes Us Human?: Scientific American

What Makes Us Human?: Scientific American: "It turns out that until humans came along, HAR1 evolved extremely slowly. In chickens and chimps—whose lineages diverged some 300 million years ago—only two of the 118 bases differ, compared with 18 differences between humans and chimps, whose lineages diverged far more recently. The fact that HAR1 was essentially frozen in time through hundreds of millions of years indicates that it does something very important; that it then underwent abrupt revision in humans suggests that this function was significantly modified in our lineage."

And HAR1 is only one, and it doesn't even code a protein. It simply! regulates the protein coding genes around it. Great article well worth reading for anyone interested in genetics.

Spirit continuation after death.

Belief Corner: Religious and Political Debate - agnostic atheist and agnostic theist?: "UPGs are not particularly reliable in dealing with the unknowable. If there is any continuation of the spirit after death, highly unlikely in my UPG, but possible, we will all go to the same place when we die. It will be a natural continuation of the way we lived unmediated by supernatural influences. In other words it will be a completely natural continuation of the spirit we nurtured while alive. Which tells me that whether a UPG includes an afterlife or not, one better be sure that the spirit they are nurturing in this life is one which they would like to live with forever. My guess is that it is WYSIWYG once it posts after death."

Those who think Pascal's wager will make any difference after death seem to me to be taking the short end of the odds if they are neglecting their personal spiritual enrichment in this life. I wonder what it would be like to spend eternity in Westboro Baptist Church? Sure sounds like Hell to me.

Moral Standard

moral position without God?: "Lavengro wrote:

Could someone tell me what this [moral] standard is, whence it derives?

I don't know about others but my standard is that the welfare, defined as satisfaction with the life they are living, of those in the society which I choose as my own, is a higher priority than even my own welfare. This is a genetic imperative derived from countless generations of primate ancestors for whom group welfare was a necessary condition for survival. The society definition is historically a village, even cities have historically been collections of village sized neighborhoods, although in cities some villages may overlap.

This genetic imperative has usually been co-opted by mediators for Gods, and occasionally by national leaders, by imposing a society on individuals either by indoctrination or more rarely by coercion. Churches have transferred the society from the village to the parish but the concept remains the same."

The difference for me is that I do not accept another's definition of what my society is. I may consider those outside my society as being important and worthy of consideration, but they are not covered by the obligation I accept for my society, and become a different consideration where my welfare and that of my society takes precedence.

Arguing with a belief.

beliefnet :

"To argue with a belief is to tilt at a windmill. The sails keep going round and round, with any damage to the sails ignored rather than repaired. One gets the impression that if the sails are shredded completely, the believer will turn the crank hermself to keep the sails moving."

One gets to the point that there is nothing left to tilt at. The sails are completely gone. At that point one can only say, as belief is usually God related, "God Bless You, it is all you have left."

Is Evolution a Science?

Thread - Is Evolution a Science?:

"Evolution is alive and well for humans, it just doesn't involve physical survival to breed anymore. It is a given in a modern technological society that mortality prior to adulthood is minimal, and evolution is focused on how adults are able to cope with living in that modern technological society. Numbers are no longer a measure of fitness, indeed out breeding resources without the technology to manage those resources is evidence of lack of fitness for survival in a modern society and the results speak for themselves. The wars and genocides in Africa and the Middle East and the slaughter of millions of citizens by modern despots while deplorable, can be thought of as evolution in action. Evolution has never been kind to the less fit by whatever standard species fitness is determined.

Evolution is occurring in Bangalore, Shanghai, parts of the US and a few other areas of the planet. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out over the next few generations. I suspect that those parts of the US where creationism is taught in science class, will find themselves among the unfit. The country is rich enough and benevolent enough to provide all with a couch and a TV to keep them off the streets, but it will be interesting to see if their religion provides them with meaning and purpose to get off the couch even to breed."

Evolution like economics is a dismal science.