Year: 2009

I have an ongoing problem with “too transparent” media publication of anything and everything, just because it is ever easier to do so, and “everybody’s doing it”. Came across this 2006 Bruce Charlton paper – The Paradox of Modern Mass Media.

“The paradox of modern mass media is that divisive content is probably intrinsic to maximizing its effectiveness and inclusiveness. The cohesion of liberal democracies therefore depends on a widespread psychological capacity to endure a permanent state of dissent and disagreement. The presence of endemic media provocation and controversy does not always make for a comfortable life. Yet, the greater the social toleration – the stronger and broader the social cohesion.”

That “depends on a widespread psychological capacity to endure” aspect makes the argument circular as to whether the divisive content is “paradoxically” a source of social cohesion. Clearly it’s a balance in the evolution of that capacity and of the divison to be tolerated. But that is incidental to the point that the large amount of division and the capacity to tolerate it must tie up huge human resources, that never achieve common closure on the contentious / divisive content … and all that we ever get to agree and build on is lowest common denominator non-contentious stuff – like Wikipedia without authorized editors.

I agree mass communication is net positive, but I believe it is highly inefficient and only just barely net positive – easily driven to be net negative. It could be so much more efficient if better mediated.

This is just an excuse to post a link to an old post on Evolutionary Intelligence by evolutionary biologist Ze Ayala in which he says …

Scientific knowledge, like the description of size, materials, and geometry of Guernica, is satisfying and useful. But once science has had its say, there remains much about reality that is of interest, questions of value and meaning that are forever beyond science’s scope.

Prompted by a surfing hit and the topics of discussion over on DawkinsNet.

Medical Hypotheses is a journal edited by Bruce Charlton but with a parallel blog of Bruce’s own papers for the last 2 years. The blog title can be misleading, since although Bruce comes from / operates in the medical / psychiatry / psychology area, and the journal itself covers this ground, his own blogging and editorial scope is much more broadly epistemological in terms of knowledge and truth generally.

I came across Bruce the first time I researched Pirsig, and have corresponded once or twice since.

Much interesting stuff for my agenda – the Inklings including Barfield , Bronowski’s “Tolerance” , “Clever Sillies” and “The Atheist Delusion“.

… Atheism is a ‘clever’ but maladaptive explanation for reality; which is preferred by many smart people exactly because it is goes against natural instinct, and therefore both requires and signals greater cleverness among its advocates. Pride in one’s own cleverness thereby overwhelms the fundamental adaptation to reality; indeed willed-nihilism and desired ideological self-extinction are, to a remarkable extent, precisely the hallmarks of an intelligent and Politically Correct Atheist.

… I suggest that it can be argued that atheism is literally a delusion, using objective psychiatric criteria.

The latter drawing the attention of the Dawkinsian crowd. Heh, heh. When are the Dawkinsians ever going to get it ? The clever sillies – high objective-scientific-rational IQ, but no common sense problem – it’s the wisdom angle – but I don’t see Bruce using the concept of wisdom in his arguments ? Worth more reading. Excellent stuff, for an non-theist like me.

Interesting series recently on white-collar crime from Laurie Taylor on “Thinking Allowed”. This week’s program was on social software communications in the post-Obama party-political election environment, and it was interesting that Laurie joined up the two subjects, in the intent and honesty of communication in these channels. Bingo.

The inventors of the internet didn’t overlook the fact that “trust” was top of the stack of priorities when communicating meaningfully, but the more un-mediated open social software communications are the norm, the less trust is explicit in the process – the medium inexorably becomes the message – “everybody’s doing it”.

Misguided  expectations – in any objective truth or value in the content of messages are unmet – and since no-one can admit to being a gullible soft-touch, scepticism tends to the downright cynical end of the trust spectrum. One aspect of such misguided expectation for objective truth is the process of justifying decisions in organizations, and the reality that in order to make decisions, much of the formal justification – eg in systems and procedures – has to be “fiddled” if the organization is to function (organizational hypocrisy). The greater the unmediated public communication, the more facts are seen to be “fiddled” and the less the uninvolved trust the involved, the greater the demand for more formal justification, the greater the demand to “fiddle” …. etc. Information is more and more mis-information.

The problem is the misguided expectation of ever greater objectivity in communications, rather than recognition that trust is above such things – almost literally.

Excellent marketing for “Tactical Nuclear Penguin“, and at £30 a pop, clearly not a contribution to binge-drinking – 20x the price for 5x to 10x the alcohol – so that’s a complete red-herring.

Their previous brew “Tokyo” at 18% was apparently genuinely brewed to that level using Champagne yeast, but how do you create 32% alcohol beer, and still call it beer, that’s what I want to know ?

(Incidentally, I’m not a fan of beers over about 4.5% anyway, so drinking the stuff would be another thing altogether. Nothing to do with “Nanny State”.)

A professional athlete that is. Jessica Ennis interviewed.

Now that is bravery, in living memory of this kind of thing.