B: programmed for conflict

I read some nerdy science magazines....And in those magazines it seems that there is a growing body of evidence that regardless of the source of stimulus (TV, video games, books, real life), the brain accepts the things that it processes to be true, even if we know they aren't. It actually takes the brain extra work to perceive something as not true and there appear to be physiological disincentives such as the experience of "distaste" when things are found to be not true. The end result of this that for all intensive purposes, parts of your brain believe everything that you experience, even if it is imaginary. And this imaginary stimulus may actually impart changes on the brain patterns and function.

This has me wondering about the arts such as literature, theater, and plain old TV and movies. We as a society immerse ourselves in dramatic conflict as an "escape" from the stresses of our lives. If we are escaping from our stress by immersing ourselves in fictional conflict, are we ultimately reprogramming ourselves to perceive conflict where there is none? Does drama result in people that feel the need to create conflict where there was none to feel comfortable within their surroundings? Does my escape to Hogwarts from my everyday life ultimately result in my feeling isolated and persecuted (or just pathetic and dorky)?

Are we as a society over stimulated with drama? Is our constant experience of fictional violence, anguish, and aggression resulting in people who expect that this is the immutable state of the world? Is there a narrative that can be told that is not rooted in conflict? Is there a narrative of joy that is not rooted in sorrow?

The more I learn, the more those laughing clubs, lame motivational posters, and fake happy people appear to actually have something going on. It now seems that immersion in fake laughter is no different than real laughter (hence the laugh track) and that eventually the fake laughter becomes real laughter as your brain accepts that is is okay to feel irrational joy. Doesn't that seem nicer than watching another murder on Law and Order?



just some thoughts...guess we need to get a TV cuz I am thinking too much.

oh yeah, this is supposed to be good too.

B: a review in blogging

Cumulus has now been going for 3 years (more or less), and this time has covered a period of great change in my life. I went from being a newlywed to a new parent. I went from my mid 20's to getting ready to turn 30, and I have grown and changed quite a bit. Unfortunately, to read the blog you see very little of that because we have always been careful about how much we disclose to the internet.

It is a tough thing this internet sharing. Some people pour their lives out, but then accumulate a crew of stalkers and freaks and create a publicly accessable record of the minutia of their lives for all to harvest what data they. The alternative is Cumulus, with our relatively impersonal blog of meaningless junk. I don't how you balance the trade-offs.

There is a blog that I read semi-regularly by this girl from seattle that is just a little younger than us and really screwed up. Based upon the details in her blog it would be really easy to track her down if I wanted to, and that is freaky! Obviously I don't want to and haven't, but anybody familiar with Seattle could. Is that level of exposure really worth the benefit of having this neat little journal with a bunch of imaginary online friends?

I don't know. What is the point of the blog anyways. What do I get out of this besides an unproductive diversion??? Am i cheating myself by not sharing, or is this whole thing just a whiny useless waste of time? Why blog?




On another topic, I am just finishing up The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I have found it to be a great read and a refreshing oportunity to reflect upon a perspective that is so divergent from our cultural understanding. He sets out to delineate a basic tenet of evolution and the behaviour of genes, using zoological examples to illustrate his points, but leave the reader to draw what they will about the impact these basic facts have on our understanding of existence.

His greatest desire in the book seems to be to accentuate the fact that humans are the only known animals that can take willful action that is contrary to the design of their instincts (ie genetic programming)to act in a truly altruistic manner. In addition he spends a good deal of time on game theory showing that mutual cooperation is gennerally the best stategy for population stability, ulimatelty leading the reader to conclude that sharing, cooperation, and altruism are really imperative to our genetic survival despite the genetic programming we may have as individuals that lead us to behave in a selfish manner.

I reccomend this as a read, if you can make it through a fairly dense piece of popular scienctific writing.