Comments for The Thinking Meat Project

Comment on Three layers of personality by Greg A

Greg A — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:38:06 +0000

I love it. “He himself described the narrative identity as a personal myth, “an imaginative reconstruction of the past and construction of the future that yields a sense of unity, purpose, and meaning.””

I suppose he knows that his attempt to provide himself a sense of unity, purpose, and meaning by inventing his own categorization for personality is itself also a myth.

Comment on Movie review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Mary

Mary — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:14:03 +0000

Thanks for the link. I had seen some images online but hadn’t seen that site. Those are gorgeous photos!

Comment on Movie review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams by chuck

chuck — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:01:47 +0000

i read about this movie back when they were first making it! i’m glad it came out well–i’ll have to go look for it now. great review. have you seen the website the french ministry of culture put up? click on “visit the cave” for a virtual tour with gorgeous photographs: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

Comment on Book review: Delusions of Gender by Mary

Mary — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:31:56 +0000

That’s a good point about inherent tendencies not necessarily being determined by gender. One example I can think of is that Fine has a nice discussion of high-school-age math competitions at a fairly elite level and the widely varying gender ratios of the competitors worldwide. The data seem to indicate, IIRC, that there’s not a huge difference in the distribution of mathematical talent between males and females. The big difference in some countries is in how much it’s nurtured in each gender–again the sad story of wasted human potential.

Comment on Book review: Delusions of Gender by AG

AG — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:49:06 +0000

Another point (I think Fine makes somewhere IIRC) I’d reiterate is that this book is not about how all qualities are socially conditioned and that none of them are inherent. It’s rather that every human may have some inherent tendencies/preferences, and then social conditioning models the rest, just that any of this is based on gender-at-birth is ludicrous. -ag

Comment on Book review: Delusions of Gender by AG

AG — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:44:55 +0000

Thanks, Mary, for an excellent review.

L and I are in the middle of reading this book, and you won’t believe the number of times I’ve shaken my head or my mind has gone “D’oh!”. And the number of times I’ve made a note on our Nook “So, I guess, I am a woman…” because of attributed micro-level behaviors and patterns. It’s also hard for me to accept how fairly progressive, well-educated, and successful friends/acquaintances blindly subscribe to the blue/pink, truck/doll type attributions. It’s beyond silly, IMO.

Hope to chat about this more when we get a chance.

Comment on Beauty, meaning, and freedom by Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 05:17:51 +0000

After reading all this, I’m left with lots of feelings and a few disjointed thoughts.

One, I was lucky to be born without the black smoke cloud, but I am inspired by the journey of folks who have emerged from it into the big wide world. That must be one hell of a trip. Hats off to those who make it. Maybe it is like coming out, in that we can/must do it again and again.

Two, I need to sit outside at night more often. Minnesota is never really sure about spring, but I think it is mostly done trying to freeze my fingers off. I think it’s time to put the hammock up.

Comment on Beauty, meaning, and freedom by Mary

Mary — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:30:02 +0000

Thank you! It is wonderful when the weight rolls away, and I love your description of no longer believing that God was “living in your head looking for things to damn you for.” That’s pretty much what my earlier beliefs felt like too.

Re: the toothpaste thing: I won’t say that Catholicism is more prone to peculiarities than any other church, but it does produce some very distinctive peculiarities. :)

Good luck with the career apoplexy! When something is in your brains since childhood, it can take a little time to figure out what you really want versus what is mostly conditioning.

Comment on Beauty, meaning, and freedom by Sarah L.

Sarah L. — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:41:33 +0000

That was lovely. I felt that weight lift, too. It was fear and it felt like black smoke rolling down off my shoulders and suddenly I realized I could think about whatever I wanted to without worrying about it. I think I still believe in God, I just don’t believe he’s living in my head looking for things to damn me for, anymore.

The toothpaste thing though . . . my goodness, I ‘d never heard anything like that.

And you’re right that there are still women who think all they should do is the mothering, teaching, nursing route. I think I had that in my brains and it may have had a hand in my current career apoplexy.

Comment on Mortality and evolution by Mary

Mary — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Intriguing ideas, thanks! My first thought about death-causing memes is that when individual people learn that a meme causes death, the effect on meme propagation is mixed, but maybe an intelligent network would respond differently. Then it occurred to me that one reason the individual reaction is mixed is that some memes may cause death but also persuade their hosts that death is not that important compared to something else that hosting the meme achieves. (This is particularly true if it is others who die. E.g., Will Durant wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of states which, if uncontrolled before it gathers strength, sweeps a nation into circumstances where its only choice is between humiliation and war; and men above military age tend to prefer war to humiliation.”) Seems like a death-dealing, death-ameliorating meme can be stable if the host population replenishes itself rapidly enough and the meme works slowly enough.

I need to re-read Cat’s Cradle.