Philosophy Wire: Language. Old language.

The human language pathway in the brain has been identified by scientists as being at least 25 million years old -- 20 million years older than previously thought. [1] Look. The baby talked. And yet. It always knew how to. How could it be otherwise anyway? Could you have legs without knowing how to walk? Think. Could you ever not-think if you didn’t always think? Watch out for that baby. It is silent now. Just staring. Are you afraid why?

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Philosophy Wire: Live now. Plan ahead. Think. Don’t.

We all think that planning for the future is better for us. How typical. Humans trying to think too much. Humans trying to think nothing. Never their mind on where they are. Never their mind on the final goal. Only because they always think that one is different than the other. Go ahead. Break the limits. See for yourself. There was nothing in the start. There is nothing beyond the end. Oh, look. There is a chair here. Do you feel tired?

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Philosophy Wire: Bias! Unbiased? Being irrational in a logical cosmos…

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

If children are exposed to bias against one person, will they develop a bias against that person's entire group? The answer is yes, according to new research. (1) How funny people are. Trying to convince themselves of all the things for which they cannot be convinced. Bias is always here in everything we do. And yet, the greatest bias of them all, is that we can judge and decide without it. Thinking in an irrational world. No-thinking in a rational one. Choose carefully what you believe. Do you believe in Logos? Are you logical enough to be crazy?

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Philosophy Wire: Not learning. Staying untouched.

As students learn a new concept, measuring how well they grasp it has often depended on traditional paper and pencil tests. Researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm, which can be used to measure how well a student understands a concept based on the student's brain activity patterns. The study is one of the first to look at how knowledge learned in school is represented in the brain. [1] Trying to understand how learning is represented in the brain. Taking for granted that this is a good thing. But the cosmos is a mirror of what is good and what is not. No, the representation of what you learn in the brain is not a good thing. Because this means that an untouched brain is now touched. Changed by the cosmos. Unable to sense anything exactly because it has sensed everything. No, learning about glue does not help you fix that glass. It is the only reason that you see the glass broken in the first place…

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Philosophy Wire: Empathy… to yourself.

Even when feeling empathy for others isn't financially costly or emotionally draining, people will still avoid it because they think empathy requires too much mental effort, according to new research. [1] We believe that feeling requires effort. But the only effort we need to exercise is not to exercise effort. For the empathy needed is not empathy towards others, but empathy towards yourself. You are the one who needs attention. But you are too sad to believe you deserve it… And so you become the others… And so you offer empathy… And so you lose any chance you ever had to feel it…

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Philosophy Wire: Orangutans. Past. Future. Humans.

Orangutans are the only non-human primates we know of who can talk about the past. [1] Gifted we are. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. And yet, there is something wrong with this nice picture. We used to cry. We used to laugh. Now we do neither. Now we cry about someone. Now we laugh about something. We used to feel. But now we don’t anymore. We just feel things. We used to exist. We do not exist now. We only do for a reason. We used to think. We do not think anymore. We just think for something. Only because we have forgotten that Being is only about non-thinking. The picture is crying now. Gifted we think we are. But the orangutan is laughing. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. But only because he does not see the present…

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Philosophy Wire: Evolution repeated? Irrationality. Existence.

A new review explores the complexity of evolution's predictability in extraordinary detail. In it, researchers closely examine evidence from a number of empirical studies of evolutionary repeatability and contingency in an effort to fully interrogate ideas about contingency's role in evolution. [1] The eternal question: is everything repeating? Or is everything unique? But the cosmos we live in favors a third option. We see things which are unique. And we see things repeating. So why not accept that both are true? See yourself in the mirror. Every time different. And every time the same. There is no way to put your feet in the same river twice. And yet, you know you are talking about the same river otherwise that sentence would not have any meaning whatsoever. 

Contradictions… Contradictions… Contradictions… 
Let go. And contradictions will go away. 
The river is irrelevant. 
Look down for a moment. 
And you will realize that you had no feet in the first place…

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Philosophy Wire: If humans were clever, would they flock?

Crowd panics, market bubbles, and other unpredictable collective behaviors would not happen if people were smart about these things and just thought through their behavior before they acted. Right? Wrong. A UC Davis researcher looked at how people behave in simple reasoning games and found that people are usually driven to "flock," or behave similarly to others in a given situation. Seth Frey, an assistant professor of communication at UC Davis, said this happens "even when people use the fancy reasoning processes that are supposed to make humans so special". [1]

Following others.
Mimicking.
Part of nature.
As humans.
As pigeons.

Do you think you stand out?
Try looking at a pigeon in the eyes.
No, you are not logical or clever.
You are just following the light.
And you are blinded by it.

Think about it.
Thinking is not what makes us special after all…

(Really. Ask the pigeons)

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Philosophy Wire: Prejudiced AI.

Showing prejudice towards others does not require a high level of cognitive ability and could easily be exhibited by artificially intelligent machines, new research has suggested. [1] We believe that the more we know the more “freely” we think. We strive to increase our knowledge in order to be able to think more objectively and independently of any prejudice. And yet. Whatever we “know” hinders our ability to learn new things. Whatever we understand breaks the cosmos into non-existent pieces which can never come back together again. All prejudice is based on knowledge. Seek wisdom in children. They know nothing. And that is why they are not prejudiced at all in favor of knowledge…

Do you dare to go and play?

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Philosophy Wire: Computers… Depression… Understanding…

Researchers detail a neural-network model that can be unleashed on raw text and audio data from interviews to discover speech patterns indicative of depression. Given a new subject, it can accurately predict if the individual is depressed, without needing any other information about the questions and answers. [1] Detecting depression. Without understanding. But this is exactly the reason why people get depression in the first place. They try to understand. And they don’t. But the only thing to understand is that there is nothing to understand. Not as a computer. But as a human. Who is able to understand but chooses not to…

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Philosophy Wire: DNA computers.

Researchers at Caltech have developed an artificial neural network made out of DNA that can solve a classic machine learning problem: correctly identifying handwritten numbers. The work is a significant step in demonstrating the capacity to program artificial intelligence into synthetic biomolecular circuits. [1] Solving problems with DNA. But we were created based on DNA. And now we command it. For solving problems. Problems meaning nothing to DNA per se. Problems which should also mean nothing to us either. No, there is no other problem. But the problem of why we need to answer any problem at all... There is no mystery under the Moon… Until the Sun comes up…

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Philosophy Wire: Smarter. Neuron connections. Seek less to get more…

The more intelligent a person, the fewer connections there are between the neurons in his cerebral cortex. This is the result of a study conducted by neuroscientists; the study was performed using a specific neuroimaging technique that provides insights into the wiring of the brain on a microstructural level. [1] Seek less to get more. Less communication, more intimacy. Less understanding, greater wisdom. Less thinking, less illusions. Less senses, fewer distractions. In the beginning there was one particle. Full. Complete. Wise. Perfectly reflected into our souls. Then we got brains. And broke the mirror into a thousand pieces…

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Philosophy Wire: Seeing with your eyes. Seeing without them. Balance. Existing.

Through brain imaging, scientists have found evidence that the brain uses eye movements to help people recall vivid moments from the past, paving the way for the development of visual tests that could alert doctors earlier about those at risk for neurodegenerative illnesses. [1] We “see” with the brain. What we “see” is what we think of. And yet, it seems that the eyes do indeed play a role in the process of experiencing our cosmos. Thinking too much makes one blind, in the same way that not thinking at all can do the same. The balance between the two is the key; a key which is very difficult to grasp. An active state of constantly balancing between the state of Zero and the state of One. Life is the state of continuous equilibrium at the border of those two states. Existence is defined by Being and Not-being. Seeing and not seeing. Perceiving all and perceiving nothing. Thinking and not thinking at all. Living and being dead. Entering the forest. At the exact moment you are leaving from it…

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Philosophy Wire: Brain simulation. Improving memory. Raising barriers.

The findings of a research are the first example of electrical brain stimulation in humans giving an event-specific boost to memory lasting until the next day, the scientists say. [1] It seems logical. The more you raise a barrier, the more it gets stronger. But is the existence of the barrier something good in the first place? Accepting the cosmos is actually hindered by a strong memory. Knowing the universe is hindered by knowledge. It takes a child to truly love. It takes a fool to understand everything. It takes a crazy person to question anything. It takes a man with no memories to remember who you truly are without them…

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Philosophy Wire: Déjà vu… Not false memories. But memory conflict!

Work by psychology researcher Akira O'Connor suggested false memories may not be to blame for the phenomenon known as “Déjà vu”. Instead, it could be a sign of the brain checking its memory.

When presenting the findings at an International Conference on Memory in Budapest, O'Connor said he thinks the frontal regions of the brain could be flipping through our memories, then sending signals if there's a mismatch between what we think we've experienced and what we actually have experienced.

"Brain regions associated with memory conflict, rather than false memory, appear to be driving the déjà vu experience," O'Connor wrote in a blog post about the findings.

"This is consistent with our idea of déjà vu as the conscious awareness of a discrepancy in memory signals being corrected. This, in turn, sheds some light on why déjà vu occurrence appears to decline with age despite the fact that memory errors tend to increase with age. If it's not an error, but the prevention of an error, this makes a lot more sense”. [1]

Checking memories. Against what we know happened.
Feeling the conflict. And yet sensing… familiarity?

The solution to a problem which continuously evades solution might be the simplest and yet the hardest of solutions: That there is no problem. Human memory keeps creating more problems than the ones it solves. We are not to trust it. We do not know how it is formulated. More often than we would like to, it is lost. And yet, with this faulty memory, we are still here. Alive and kicking. Perhaps we should stop trying to remember. And try to be ourselves. Here and now.

I feel I have said that before…
But I do not care.

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Philosophy Wire: Religion: Neither intuition nor rational thinking?

Religious beliefs are not linked to intuition or rational thinking, according to research by the universities of Coventry and Oxford.

Previous studies have suggested people who hold strong religious beliefs are more intuitive and less analytical, and when they think more analytically their religious beliefs decrease. But new research, by academics from Coventry University's Centre for Advances in Behavioural Science and neuroscientists and philosophers at Oxford University, suggests that is not the case, and that people are not 'born believers'.

The study found no link between intuitive/analytical thinking, or cognitive inhibition (an ability to suppress unwanted thoughts and actions), and supernatural beliefs. Instead, the academics conclude that other factors, such as upbringing and socio-cultural processes, are more likely to play a greater role in religious beliefs. [1]

But where is culture based on, if not on intuition and/ or rational thinking? And in any case, can anything exist outside the context of culture? We are rational beings. Or irrational. It doesn’t really matter. We are who we are. And we create civilization. Part of which is religion and will always be. Instead of trying to cast it out by giving an (invalid) explanation for its existence, we should just accept it and embrace it. Depending on the axioms used anything can look stupid or bad. But take a closer (and more sincere) look. Religion tries to use the less axioms that any of you judging it. Religion tries to just accept the cosmos as it is. It is just that some people hate that. Some people are just too dogmatic to tolerate the freedom of thinking which allows some humans to see the cosmos without the dogmatic mentality of materialism. There is nothing wrong with religion. There is nothing wrong with you. Relax my boy. You are just afraid. I know. But don’t worry. Your father is here too…

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Philosophy Wire: Day-dreaming. Easy tasks. Difficult existence.

A study suggested that daydreaming during meetings isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might be a sign that you're really smart and creative. People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering. Schumacher – an associate psychology professor who co-authored the study – said higher efficiency means more capacity to think, and the brain may mind wander when performing easy tasks. [1] But what is easy? At the end and with enough practice, everything is. The hard part is not to let your mind wander when it is bored. The hard part is to make your brain not work without making your mind work. To convince yourself not to be himself without referring to him in the first person. To clap with one hand while in a silent forest. To go crazy in an illogical world. To be via not-being. To dream while still being awake…

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Philosophy Wire: Learning. Via moving.

Math are learned best by children when they move. [1] Everything we see is based on numbers. But numbers lead to infinity. And the arrow will never reach its target. Stay still. And then you might hear the rustling of the leaves…

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Philosophy Wire: Being distracted. And that is a good thing.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-08-12]: As people age, they become more easily distracted. But being distracted helps people think creatively and use information that was previously irrelevant. [1] We are young. So much attached to life and its preservation. How can we see things outside it? Old we must become. To stop paying attention too much. And only then will we pay attention…

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Philosophy Wire: Milky Way disappearing. From light. Cosmos disappearing. From thought.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2016-11-14]: The Milky Way, the brilliant river of stars that has dominated the night sky and human imaginations since time immemorial, is but a faded memory to one third of humanity and 80 percent of Americans, according to a new global atlas of light pollution produced by Italian and American scientists. [1] We create light. And make the stars go away. Light needs darkness to appear. The cosmos needs voidness in the mind to arise in existence. Look at the sky. Whatever you see, blocks you from seeing what you ought to…

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