Glenn Andrew's : Religious Philosopher

http://www.beretta-online.com/main.html

Tunneling Effect and Perceptions

Humans are prone to tunneling, the more intelligent the person is the more precise would be his justification for tunneling.

Here is how tunneling is defined:

First Problem:
Given a piece of information, man would make an assumption/forecast or estimate. Basically he would make a perception based on the data. Now the problem is that he wouldn't really be confident about his perception if the information is too less. As we increase the information provided, the confidence in the perception increases linearly. As the confidence increases, then so does the precision and we start adding details to our perception.


Second Problem:
As you make a perception, then that perception becomes contagious and humans start to think in groups. The first perception influences the second perception made by someone else and the First Problem spreads like a disease.


Here is a real life example. 100 years ago, Jews were persecuted by Christians but lived in relative harmony in Ottoman Empire. 100 years later, Jews are loved by Christians and persecuted by Muslims. Historical perceptions not only tunnel but these perceptions flip flop.

An increasing information makes you more confident in your perceptions and people rarely question these perceptions due to the high confidence level.

Whenever we read a book which negates are previous perceptions and allows us to form new ones then we religiously believe in these new perceptions. Now increasing information doesn't lead to an increase in perception but leads to more confusion as at any time the information provided would be incomplete. I have been talking to atheist recently and I soon realized that they had really high confidence levels in their "rational method", yet when I asked some serious philosophical questions related to episteme and incompleteness of information then they rarely had any coherent replies. 

Self Control comes in Limited Reserves

self control comes in limited reserves and is tied to the blood glucose level. Once the glucose level depletes then self control goes out of the window too. 

People who overtax their self-control may find they have less in reserve for later, suggests an intriguing new study that may have implications for people trying to lose weight or make other behavioral changes.

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  By Getty Images
  Lack of sleep does not appear to affect self-control, the study says.

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By Getty Images

Lack of sleep does not appear to affect self-control, the study says.

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But lack of sleep does not appear to affect self-control, say the researchers, whose study of 58 subjects is in the March issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

The subjects — half had stayed awake for 24 hours and half were well-rested — were shown scenes involving vomit and excrement from two movies, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) and Trainspotting (1996).

Some were allowed to express reactions; others were told to show no emotion. Later, they played an aggressive game in which they won or lost by chance. Winners were allowed to blast their opponent with a loud noise.

Those who had suppressed their emotions blasted their opponent at a noise level about 33% higher than those who were allowed to show emotion, regardless of how much sleep they'd had, researchers found.

Results suggest that "people have a diminishable supply of energy that the body and mind use to engage in self-control," says study author Kathleen Vohs, a consumer psychology professor at the University of Minnesota'sCarlson School of Management. "When people use this energy toward achieving one goal, they have less of it available to use toward achieving other goals."

That can help predict when people are likely to fail at their diets, spend too much money or misbehave with family or in relationships, Vohs says.

Results suggest loss of self-control resources isn't the same as being tired, she says. "The ability to engage in self-control is determined by prior use of self-control, not by how much sleep one had the night before."

The study was part of ongoing research on sleep deprivation at the University of Texas-Austin.

Findings don't suggest busy people will lash out for no reason: "Aggressive behavior involves some action by someone else that causes you to want to retaliate," says researcher Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas.

Roy Baumeister, director of social psychology at Florida State University, has done extensive research on self-control. "Most people chronically don't get enough sleep, so it's reassuring to suggest from this one finding that it does not have any effect on self-control of aggression," he says.

But Baumeister says the test used may not account for other factors besides self-control that could contribute to aggression, such as personality or the competitiveness of the task itself.

Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, says it's interesting that "being taxed in terms of doing one task can have these spillover effects on another." People may think they can compartmentalize the different tasks they do during the day, but it turns out they are all connected, she says.

The study, paid for in part by the U.S. Army, could have important implications for the military as well. Though a lab is nothing like a war zone, "it does give preliminary reason for hope that just because a soldier has been forced to stay up for 24-36 hours, it doesn't mean they will react aggressively because they were sleep-deprived," Markman says.

For the rest of us, Vohs recommends being more mindful of priorities:

"When you want to engage in good self-control, the best thing that you can do for yourself is set up your day so you exert your self-control resources toward that specific task you want to succeed at."

Classical Heuristics : Pukhtunwali

http://www.valleyswat.net/literature/papers/Pukhto.pdf

Questions for an Athiest

Have you ever read a book on ethics, language, logic or epistemology (apart from the pop-fiction stuff)? Why are you seriously obsessed with "God", and what do you exactly mean by "science". Are you aware that all the wars fought for the past 200 years were fought because of secular beliefs, Nazism, Communism, Cold War and now the spread of liberal democracy (iraq/afghanistan) are all utopian secular ideas which has killed people at a much larger scale than ever before. Are you inspired by Comte, and yearn for a scientific revolution. I showed to you that iatrogenesis was the 3rd leading cause for death in the US and yet you came up with articles on quackery, which isn't really a leading a cause for death, stupid yes, but not a leading cause for death.

Science becomes extremely dangerous for complex systems, type-2 errors and system properties change with scale which leads to error propagation. (hint: keep evidence-based science and complexity separate). Evidence based science really is no better than faith belief religious systems when it comes to defining the behavior of complex systems. Pyrho, Hume and Karl Popper were all obsessed with the problem of induction. Sextus Empiricus who collected philosophical works in 2nd century BC wrote:


"Those who claim for themselves to judge the truth are bound to possess a criterion of truth. This criterion, then, either is without a judge's approval or has been approved. But if it is without approval, whence comes it that it is truthworthy? For no matter of dispute is to be trusted without judging. And, if it has been approved, that which approves it, in turn, either has been approved or has not been approved, and so on ad infinitum."

How can knowledge be defined. Are there any basic truths as Spinoza mentioned which could be used to build and justify the existence of knowledge. Or like Ghazali in Tahafut Al Falsifa who simply disagreed with any form of knowledge that introduced doubt, but he did agree with the scientific method where there was no doubt involved:

"Whosoever thinks that to engage in a disputation for refuting such a theory is a religious duty harms religion and weakens it. For these matters rest on demonstrations, geometrical and arithmetical, that leave no room for doubt."

Most athiests, rationalists etc have never ever read a philosophy book on ethics, logic, language or epistemology and yet they continue to believe in myths about rationalism propagated by modern pop fiction. Reminds me of Comte and Nietzche and the disaster that lead to Nazism and Communism. Nothing could be uglier than secular fundamentalism. (liberal democracy is the new secular myth)

Mill's writing on liberty, stress a belief system not a rational system. The belief that liberal democracy will bring a better world is a utopian belief. For the last 200 years, people have been killed at a larger scale than ever before because of secular fundamentalism. The cold war was a secular undertaking between two secular beliefs. The neo-cons believed that democracy in iraq would usher in a utopia, based on a secular belief system. The greatest danger to the world is from secular ideas that not only promise a utopia but also entertain the idea that other forms of thinking, belief systems, cultures and traditions are lesser.

The type of god that is so fondly dissed is not even found in 90% of the religious traditions around the planet. God as an objective reality is rarely presented in any religious tradition (mostly, modern christianity).

Athiesm is typical of highly autistic people, who are future blind are prone to tunneling and can't handle ambiguity. Being in love is part of the human condition, same as being scared of the dark. You can try opening up human farms like hitler did to improve germans genetically but it would simply be ugly. In a similar manner believing in superstition is part of the human condition. You can't get rid of love, anger, and you can't get rid of superstition. You can only replace one with an uglier version or something different. You can subtract god and replace him with dialectical materialism like communism did, or replace it with mill's theories on liberty but one belief system would be replaced by another.

I suspect that what you are asking is to change the human condition. A person who cannot love is a lesser human. A person who replaces his religious tradition with something called dialectical materialism is an uglier person.

How do you differentiate yourself from religious and secular extremists?

The culture of Affluence and Child Well being

The Culture of Affluence and its affects on Young Children

http://faculty.tc.columbia.edu/upload/sl504/2003Affluence-Childdevt.pdf

Vintage Musicians - Tragedy and Emotions

Is it just me, but I have recently noticed as I listen to vintage classics that all old french/arabic musician were a lot into tragedy.....plus the additional live performances forced them to become actors who played with emotions....some of Brel's and Fairuz's performances are mind blowingly touching. They had the power to make you happy or to make you cry and touched your inner soul at a whole different level. Unlike today's musicians who mostly cringe as they try to be emotional.

These vintage musicians belonged to a whole different genre and knew their audiences live. Having a live audience is a daring proposition. Their weren't large concerts, only small events where the audience was much more visible, unlike today's concerts where the crowd is just like a black mass and there simply isn't a real feedback system. The musician don't end up mixing with the crowd after a concert to know how it went. These vintage musician had to seriously consider feedback which was real time in those days. Now the only way a musician knows that he is doing poorly is that his concert attendance or his CD sales are doing poorly. Their is a significant delay in that feedback. Their are other feedback methods, which generally include the noise the concert crowd is making but that would rarely tell you anything substantive.

Properties change with scale, and the same is the case with music. So a vintage musician would be shitting his pants when he would get on stage, knowing fully well that if he does poorly then he would have to listen to some pretty severe criticism. He wouldn't be bussed out the moment the concert ends. Here's Brel talking about how he would vomit before every performance out of fear. Now, musicians would just snot cocaine or take marijuana and get on stage. They don't really need any interaction (normal) with the crowd hence it doesn't matter if they are high.

Here's another one where the intensity of the man shines through. It's an intellect, which has been severely tested by taking years of criticism from his audience. Can't find one modern musician who could speak with the same emotional intensity. Modern musicians are truly isolated beings, a property of musicians derived because of scale:

I would end this rant against modern music by listen to Madamme Fairuz songs (find the translation yourself, I want music with performances):

Or this song by Fairuz with translation:

Vintage songs were also deeply tragic. They responded to the human need for knowing that their are other lives as tragic as ours. Not those happy go lucky songs in modern music which have no basis in reality and only go on to tell you that there are people out their who are happy and you are not one of them.

Would you like listening to a song that touches you're heart or a song that has nothing to do with your life. Only tragedy touches everyone, but not happiness which is reserved for the few lucky assholes. 

The First PC Virus --> made in Pakistan

All about muscle growth

Increasing the size of muscles by increase muscle cell size (not number of new cells) is called MUSCLE HYPETROPHY

There are two ways in which this could be achieved.

a) sarcoplasmic hypertrophy increases sarcoplasmic fluid in muscles, which increases muscle size but not strength....this is typical for bodybuilders. Low intensity, low resistance, high volume resistance training leads to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

b) myofibrillar hypertrophy in which actin and myosin proteins increase in numbers inside muscle cell. They play a role in muscle contraction. This is typical for olympic weight lifters (lesser mass, more stength). High intensity, high resistance, low volume training leads to myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy and Exercise


Aerobic exercises enhance muscle capacity for storing fat and carbohydrates, on the other hand, high intensity anaerobic exercises enhance hypertrophy.


Anaerobic Exercise


Fast twitch skeletal muscles use anaerobic metabolism for functioning.