Termite Mound by Razmataz

When I was a kid, one of the books I read that stimulated my sense of awe and wonder in nature was “Die Siel van die Mier”, which in English is “The Soul of the Ant” – written by an important figure (I now realise) in ethology, Eugene Marais. I can still remember his descriptions of how magnificent a termite’s nest is, how comparatively small a termite is, and the questions he asked around how it was possible that such a stupendous, high structure with its intricate pathways and symmetries could be architected by these creatures.

How did they communicate and agree on what to build and how to build it?  How did they work together, and coordinate themselves?

I believe he attributed it to some invisible guiding force from the queen.  Other people attribute it to some kind of innate intelligence.  But another word describes it better: stigmergy.

Stigmergy

Stigmergy refers to how an animal modifies its environment as part of some action or stimulus – and how that environment modification can in turn influence other animals.

So for example an ant might detect some food, and then secrete a pheromone trail back to the nest.  The ant has modified the environment – and now other ants will magically start trundling to the food.  Presumably ants have some simple, default mechanism of “follow the pheromone lad” kind of behaviour – it’s a simple behaviour, but it’s queued on an environmental modification.

From Theraulaz and Bonabeau

Another example is given in a paper by A Brief History of Stigmergy (PDF) by Theraulaz and Bonabeau. These poor wasps are trying to build a funnel, but at some point, just before they’re finished, a researcher creates a little hole near the top of the funnel (S1).  That’s the same stimulus that drove the wasps to create the funnel in the first place – so what do they do?  Well, they go and create another one at that spot.

Stigmergy and algorithms

The behaviour is deviously simply, very mechanical, very algorithmic – with a lovely feedback mechanism.  That same paper has a nice analysis of how a particular species of wasp coordinates to create a hive.  The algorithm is something like: create a new piece of comb at some location that has the most walls.  This will result in a nice comb being constructed, instead of a straight line of cells.

I find a deep beauty here – in how evolution has led to these creatures using simple, local rules to create vast and complex structures and behaviour.  The behaviour emerges from the simple algorithm.  That got me thinking about boids.

Other Emergent Behaviours

One way I look at this stigmergy is that the complexity behind the physical object arose from the interactions of individual agents. The behaviours accreted a physical manifestation.  I suspect boids are another example of this – except the physical manifestation is absent, or rather it’s temporal.

Have you ever seen birds flocking? Or the amazing wheeling of a school of fish.  How is it coordinated?  It turns out that individuals need to do very little, perhaps just obey three simple and localised rules: separation, alignment and cohesion.  If they do, the behaviour of flocking simply emerges out of the group.

Craig Reynolds developed an artificial life program (called boids), which demonstrates these simple laws in action.  Here’s a look at a simple animation based on the algorithm.

Again, I marvel at this reverse engineering.  The amazing swirling, whirling and acrobatic displays of swarm birds and bats can be reduced to three simple, local rules – that if any one individual obeys, will result in the collective whole taking on an incredibly beautiful behaviour.

Stigmergy and culture

I wonder how we, humans, are affected by these kinds of things.  What kind of traces do we leave in our environment that causes us to perform certain behaviours which may in turn lead to….?

That question makes me think of culture – which increasingly I realise is the source of much of what we do and how we think.

Perhaps another way of looking at culture is simply that of a stigmergic trail that we leave behind us.

This is an example of larger signalling theory that looks at communication between individuals.  (In the above example, you can think of it as an interspecies communication.)

Honest and dishonest signals

One aspect of signalling theory is determining whether a signal is honest or dishonest.  For example, a gazelle wouldn’t be able to jump straight up if seriously injured.  Bench-pressing a heavy weight is an honest signal of strength – you can’t fake it.

Driving around in a Lamborghini Gallardo may be seen as an honest signal of wealth.  Then again, the driver could just be a lackey taking it to the car wash – or perhaps the driver sold his house and is in debt on the repayments.  It could well be a dishonest signal.

Conspicuous consumption and the handicap principle

You can take these example a little further when applied to humans with the delightfully named conspicuous consumption – spending wealth on luxury goods is not really for the sake of the luxury good, but rather as a signal to others that you have the wealth to do so.  It’s a public display of wealth – probably for the sake of status.  As an aside, folk have even proposed a luxury tax on such consumption.

Thorstein Veblen proposed this in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class – together with other terms like conspicuous leisure – here’s a nice quote that sums this up:  “Time is consumed non-productively … as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness”

There’s a whole game-theoretic side to signalling theory, some of which you can find in the handicap principle, which proposes that honest signals must be costly to produce and send (they’re handicaps) – and looks at the evolutionary conditions for such a system. 

In everyday life

Perhaps this explains, to some degree, why my neighbour drives that big car he does, why that woman buys her Louis Vuitton bag, and why some of my Twitter network do nothing other than retweet famous people. Perhaps they’re all signalling something – in this case status (either via wealth or association).

I’m sure it’s a little more complex (who you signal to is probably limited to those within your social class, close to yourself in the social hierarchy) – but nevertheless, I hope you agree that it’s fascinating stuff.

This happened to me a few years ago. It was, after investigation, just the wind – but the pattern was such that my mind assumed there was someone was there, rapping on the window. The branch had probably knocked against the window countless times – but my brain only said “oh hai Jon” when something (unconsciously) registered that there was something more than chance at play – a possible agent.

Humans are pretty good at agent detection, and probably lean towards detecting many false positives, as I did with the branch. It’s better to misinterpret the rustling leaves as an approaching lion and live to tell the tale, than to ignore them, and be eaten. (There are, I believe, many scientists examining this phenomenon, and just how sensitive we and other animals are to it.)

I once read about a wonderful term, a Hyperactive Agent Detection Device (HADD). The determination of agency where there is none – can be seen as a symptom of HADD. Our brains are wired to be a little too sensitive, a little hyperactive.

As a result, we’re prone to see agency where there is none. This is an example of a human bias.

Some possible examples, based on my loose definition:

• You can well imagine a host of gods being created to explain crop failures, rains, earthquakes and other natural disasters. In fact, some modern American preachers appear to still believe this.
• I wonder if this extends to fabricated constructions too. I once heard someone say “My company doesn’t like me” – somehow anthropomorphising 2000 people and processes – making a single agent out of them.
• Spirits, ghosts fall into this category too. The evil spirit is especially interesting. People are imagining an agent inside another one.

We all have, and we’ve probably all experienced, agent detection. Pay attention to those around you and see if you can spot them using HADD – fabricating agents where there are none.

Dear Friends,

I’m working from Nice this week! Today (Sunday) I woke up at 9:30, not having any plans. I went to bed last night failing to make any. I tried, but I was spoiled for choice. Do I go to Grasse and visit a perfume factory? Or try and get into the mountains near Italy? Or go to Italy itself? This morning I had better travel sense – just choose something, and go. No pre-judgement, no research. Someone once told me Eze was pretty – okay, that sounds like a plan. So, muesli for breakfast, a little filter coffee (there’s a machine in the apartment, and nothing near outside), and a little baguette with apricot jam. I presumed the bakery was closed, it being Sunday, and hope to improve on this breakfast tomorrow by throwing in a croissant and whatever else is going.

Digression: Even if there was coffee outside, it wouldn’t be any good. I’ve yet to have a good espresso in France. They’re lifeless, one dimensional, thin and insipid. Italy is marginally better.

Digression on the digression: Think of these digressions as footnotes. Emails and blogs are deprived of pages and hence footers, which is a shame really.

Next, a shower, and then outside into the bright sunlight (sunglasses on) to find the bus to the center of Nice.

Digression: Showering: Now this isn’t as easy as it sounds. The Airbnb apartment I’m living in certainly hasn’t got “bathroom” in the catalogue as a shining feature. The bath is tiny, with a shower curtain that manages to stretch half way around. It’s tiny in breadth and length – even sitting may be a challenge. I don’t want to try, as I don’t want to die wedged in a foreign bath. Nor do I wish my backside to touch the Eiffel Tower anti-slip mat. There’s also nothing against the wall to hold the shower head – so it’s really a juggle.

I’m staying on the outskirts of Nice – in a place called Carras. Three minutes walk away (depending on how well you play Frogger with the traffic) is the splendid sea. Now I’m not pulling the wool over your eyes here. It really is splendid. The following image doesn’t do it justice.

The sea is this bright blue azure ultramarine cerulean wonder. I took the photograph above at dusk on the day I arrived, so it’s a little subdued. You really have to fire up your cyan neurones to feel it. Or look here at this other photo I took a few years ago. There’s also something very curious about the beach. (Yes, they call it a beach even though it’s made of pebbles. In other words, stones.) The beach drops off steeply for at least half a meter before the sea – it’s almost as if the beach forms an embankment rather than a slope as you usually find. I suspect the sea is quite deep just a meter or two out, but really, I have no desire to find out. The blue is everything.

Digression: I Googled myself + Flickr to find that photo of mine, and one of the links that came up was this one. Some French tourist site. Note the name credit under the first photo :-)

I walked along the promenade a little – Promenade des Anglais – admiring the view and the smell of the sea, before crossing back and getting on a bus. 20 minutes later, and I’m in the middle of Nice, near the old town. I sort of know this area as I once got lost here. I know where old-town is, where Place Garibaldi is, where that restaurant  that sells pissaladiere is, and where that damn hill I once climbed over in the blazing sun to take a photo is, and most importantly, where the bus stop is for the particular bus I want to take that leaves Nice, that heads east along the coast. I’ve taken busses in almost the same direction before, hugging the coast to the beautiful Villefranche-sur-mer. This time, I was up for a bus that traveled much higher up the coast – still following it – but right at the top. Èze is a hilltop village, perched up there somewhere.

Digression: Pissaladiere is awesome. Sort of like a pizza , but no tomatoes. Just fried onions, with a little anchovies and olives. I suppose I’m in France and should say “sautéed”?

The bus took about 25 minutes I’d say – not long at all. Most of it was spent climbing. Thankfully the full sun wasn’t baking down – these busses can be very sweaty affairs. I was surrounded by Germans, Dutch, Japanese, Americans and French.

Digression: For at least half the trip I drowned them out with Nina Simone in my ear – Sinnerman was the song. She once lived in Paris, I think, so it felt right. Besides, it’s an awesome song. The song feels like a journey too.

The bus trip really is fantastic. You get to see the magnificent coast, and if you sit on the right hand side, you’re practically hanging off the cliff faces. It’s a long winding road, with mostly green bushes on the left (with the odd mansion or two), and the wonderfully blue sea on the right. First, we went past Villefranche-sur-mer. I recognised it, even from so high up. All those magnificent yachts in the harbour, and a large ocean liner as well. Take a look at my photos of the area (taken just over a year ago) to really appreciate it.

There’s a particularly interesting colour scheme the entire journey. You have the azure blues on the one side, a grey blue in the sky (it wasn’t a clear day, nor was it overcast), and then this dark green, almost white rocks, and terracotta of the roofs. After Villefranche-sur-mer you have Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and far in the distance, the peninsula Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat. I’ve never been there, but it strikes me it that it must have some lovely views. Next time.

After arriving in Eze (I knew I was there as the bus had obviously reached a peek in its ascent. Also, everyone got off the bus.), you’re faced with this large hill that you have to climb. It was once a fortified stronghold, and it’s easy to see why. Having said that, while walking around the upper parts of what feels like ramparts, I found a gate that had a sign on it: “This is the gate used by the Turks when they invaded Eze.”

The place is about 430 metres high (says Wikipedia) – and you’ve got to pay an extra 6 euros to get right to the top – where you find a large garden of succulents. I found the succulents completely uninteresting, given the magnificent views all around.

While there, my stomach started to indicate that food and water would perhaps be a good idea. Besides, I had looked at my watch – about 12:15 – and knew that if I didn’t find something soon, I’d have to fight for cheap grub with sweaty tourists.

Now if you look at the photo above, looking down to the sea, what do you see on the left hand side? A little balcony, no? Well, that’s the balcony for the restaurant of Chateau Eza. I came across the place while trying to find the top – they make it difficult with multiple dead-ends everywhere. Each dead-end tends to have a great view, and some stall or other selling art or art-like goods. One of them had the hotel entrance. At the time, I swore and retraced my steps, trying to find the route.

Well, standing on the peak, overlooking the sea, with stomach grumbling and facing the humbling experience of having to dodge my way past at least 20 Japanese schoolgirls, I decided to eat there. Okay, I admit it, I did actually do a quick Google – it had 4.5 stars with over a hundred votes on some site or other, so it couldn’t be all that bad.

Digression: There’s something interesting when someone bows to me. I bow back. Or have a strong compulsion to do so. That must be simply from the cultural experience of having watched many movies of Japanese folk bowing to each other. Strong stuff – culture. Or empathy.

Well, I found the hotel quite quickly – it appears my compass works well when heading toward food – and found the delightful concierge who told me to attendre for a moment while she checked whether I could be seated, not having made a reservation and all. Some of this happened in French. Thankfully she switched to English for the important bits. “Une table pour un s’il vows plaît,” is about all I can manage. That, and “Malheureusement, je ne parle pas français”. Oh, and “C’est magnifique,” which is said after the starter. I kid you not.

Well, I was taken down some steps and led to a chair – on that very same balcony I saw earlier. My god, the view was amazing. A bottle of water appeared (“non-gazeuse”), and 10 minutes later, a plate of three skewered delights arrived, together with a menu. I have no idea what two of them were, I wasn’t paying attention (and sometimes the heavy French-accented English is a little difficult to understand). The third was a tiny goat’s cheese – which was surprisingly yummy. One of the skewers appeared to end with a marshmallow. I can’t be sure though – I was already inebriated on the experience. I then spent 5 minutes interpreting the French menu. No Anglais version here mate. Luckily I have a good dictionary on my iPhone, and the staff were friendly and helpful.

Digression: I have had a marshmallow before – at a posh place in Tel Aviv. I suspect this wasn’t a marshmallow.

After I placed my order, another waiter came along and ushered me to my seat inside the restaurant. The view was even more stunning from inside here.

So, here’s what I ate and smelled and gazed at. Recall that at this point I’ve already eaten a little snack while waiting outside.

First to come around, the amuse-bouche. This was really very very nice. Imagine a small glass vessel, perhaps the size of my cupped hand. Inside, lined along the edges, are julienned fresh beetroot. Inside, a beetroot mousse that just melts in your mouth, leaving a creamy beetroot flavour that’s just awesome. It’s somewhat pinkish, as you can imagine, but not as pink as you might think. And light. So light. Unbelievably light. It must be held up by the will power of the chef. Some crushed walnuts were on one side of the mousse, just a few, and on the other, some kind of parmesan chip. The glass bowl was served on a piece of slate, which also held a dollop (I’m sure there’s a better word for it) of fig chutney. Of my. And then artfully sprinkled over the fig chutney, and trailing a little like the tail of a comet, was some wonderfully salty salt. The fit chutney was amazing. Having it with a little of the salt was incredible – a little explosion of pleasure.

Staggering. Really, you don’t get better than this. Wonderful flavours, wonderful smells, wonderful textures.

Oh my, I forgot the wine! So, soon after I sat down the sommelier came over. I knew he was a sommelier as he had a white cloth hanging off one arm. He also had a sommelier lapel pin. He knew what I was going to eat – and when I asked him for a white – indicating a demi-boutelle (one glass was definitely not going to cut the mustard here) – we settled on a Pouilly-Fume (La Demoiselle de Bourgeois) from Henri Bourgeois. ZOMG. Apparently it would hold up to the Turbot, which I had ordered as my main meal. Lovely wine, really lovely. A lot of flavour (from gooseberry to, well, all sorts of interesting stuff) – and a heady aroma. It was lovely. I enjoyed every drop.

Where was I? Snacks, done. Wine, done. Amuse-bouche, done. Right, starter next.

I ordered (avoiding the foie-gras, so popular around here), the poached fig. Boom. Here it is in all of it’s glory:

So, that’s the poached fig in the middle. A lovely sweetish wine jus surrounds it. Fresh fig on the side, together with some Jamon Iberico. Those tiny grape-like items are quite surprising. They’re tomatoes. The red one, in particular, had a staggeringly peppery flavour. I asked – apparently they’re a speciality of Nice. Oh, and on top of it all, a dollop (yes, a dollop) of “sea-salt ice cream”. Or something like that. It was yummy.

Wonderful presentation, as you can see. Picturesque, is what it is. In fact, each dish was brought covered by an ornate silver cover (there must be a name for this – I don’t know what it is) – deftly removed with dramatic aplomb and a wide arc of the arm. I was always amazed at what was unveiled.

Well the starter was very tasty. If I had a complaint, it would be that it was a little too sweet for a starter. But just a little. A tiny smattering, a teensy weensy heavy handedness on the sweetness of the jus. But I’m not going to complain. It was gorgeous, and I ate it all. If I wasn’t surrounded by liveried waiters, I may have licked the plate.

Digression: A lady opposite had the ornate silver cover dish of her plate removed, and there, nestled upright amongst her food, was a tiny sprig of lavender, obviously just lit before delivery. It was a subtle and quite lovely smokey fragrance that emanated from her table for a few minutes.

The main was a speciality of the house – “wild turbot, cooked slowly”. It had a sort of crunch wild-hair topping – I couldn’t tell you what it was – and was served on a crushed tomato “Cœur de Bœuf” (heart beef). In other words, a slice of de-pipped beef tomato, somewhat crushed :-) Various other vegetables (and a cep or two) were on the plate as well. Oh, and a mussel or two. Blech! I enjoyed this, in particular it went well with the wine, but I found it lacked punch, lacked zazzzzzz. I found myself yearning after the amuse-bouche. It looked lovely though.

Dessert was delightful. Some reasonably traditional (at least, in its inspiration, pear dish). Poached pear on a kind of cake stuffed with a chestnut concoction.

Digression: The cake reminded me of a savarin I once ate. He’s a famous french gastronomic dude I know little about.

Afterwards, they served coffee together with a few bonbons, which were all absolutely yummy.

I think by the time I took this photo, I had already eaten one. That pretty plate on the left holds hemispheric sugar cubes….

That was my meal! I suspect I spent close to 3 hours in their company – all the while looking out at that wonderful view.

Afterwards, I sauntered down to the bus stop, waited 20 minutes with some lovely music in my ear (“A Song For You”, by Leon Russell, “Bowie”, by Flight of the Conchords, “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies, “Lady D’Arbanville” by Cat Stevens”, and yes, “Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations).

Digression: These songs are on my “happy list” which then turned into my “travel list” – songs I know I like that I ensure are downloaded before I travel. I thought the last song was a happy one – until I shared it with a friend who pointed out that the lyrics are actually sad. However, I find it’s sung with so joy, so I’ll pretend I don’t know that.

Now, the thing with old towns like Nice is that the streets aren’t built to drive tanks through. They’re narrow, and consequently often only one-way. This has consequences. In particular, the bus stop will be in a different place. The return trip had me get off quite near the old town – so close that I could actually see it. Now I remember there was a famous ice cream shop down there – it serves over a hundred flavours, from Cactus to good old Vanilla. It’s called Fenocchio, and it’s in a really quaint square, which is a little difficult to find when navigating the narrow streets. Needless to say, my food compass won. Here’s a look at the square itself:

At this point on was on a Facebook chat with a friend who instructed me to eat their house special, Le Comté de Nice. I stood in the queue for 10 minutes, wondering whether this is really something I want to do. No, it was not that I had just finished a gourmet delight 2 hours prior. It was the queueing itself. San Franciscans love to do this. I don’t like it as much. Well, I got to the head of the queue, ordered my ice cream, and was told (in English) that it’s not something you can just order – I had to sit down at a table. Thankfully, I was led (almost by hand) to an empty table, and told to wait.

The ice cream appeared 5 minutes later:

There’s no sense of scale here. As friend Jo has a tendency to say, without exaggeration I’m sure, it was the size of my head. Amazingly tasty. All sorts of flavours going on here, from honey to citrus to pine nuts to .. Oh, and those candied fruits. I could have sworn they were cumquats. Cumquats are amazing. Sweet & sour in one beautifully sized package.

Needless to say, dinner with a light affair tonight. I had bought some interesting looking apples yesterday, so I peeled them, put them in a pot with some water, and made an apple sauce. Now, I’ve only ever done this 3 times in my life – I have no idea what possessed me to do it today. It turned out rather well – the apples were really sweet – I added nothing. No cloves to be had though. I also dipped a piece of baguette into the apple – lovely!

Well, that was my day. I’m glad I went out in the end, and glad I had this experience. Now, back to work.

Love,
Jon

PS.  This was originally distributed as an email to my friends – who encouraged me to blog it as well.  I will try and do so more often.

It’s so obvious, yet I’d never thought of it like that before – not so precisely. Our pleasure with respect to objects is tied to beliefs. Just imagine how much you appreciate a Van Gogh painting after finding it to be a forgery – no matter how accurate – no matter how beautiful you thought it was before you found out.

Or, say you lost the wedding ring (and imagine it’s a mass-produced variety) – you would probably find that both you and your partner wouldn’t go out and buy a duplicate and think of it as “the same ring”.

Why do we treat these duplicates differently to their originals?  It’s because of those beliefs.

Intangible beliefs and essentialism

That intangible set of beliefs around objects has a name in some circles – its essence. It turns out humans are natural essentialists: essentialism can be shown to occur from early childhood.

Essentialism skews how we reason – it creates reasoning biases – and of course it determines how we categorise things.

For example:

• Essences can be lost.  When that wedding ring was lost, it wasn’t just the physical ring that was lost – its essence was last as well.  That’s why a physical duplicate just won’t cut it.
• People believe that there is some unobservable property that causes things to be the way they are. For example, the butterfly is a butterfly even through its pupal stage.  I suppose people are people even through their baby stage too – and wonder if essentialism plays a role in some people’s objection to abortion and the concept of a soul.
• Essences can be transferred. For example, people would pay for Robbie William’s clothing.  They’d pay even more if he wore them, and even more if he sweated in them.

Essentialism and eating

Human history has many examples of people believing they can acquire the essence of something by eating its embodiment.  Think:

• Chinese “medicine” (a misnomer) and the belief that eating tiger penis would help with erectile disfunction.
• Catholics believe that the Eucharist physically changes into the body of their Christ.  (I understand that if you’re Catholic and don’t believe that, you’re not really Catholic.)
• Cannibals
• “Natural foods” – people think they’ll be healthier, more vital, more “attach whatever belief you’ve attached to natural” when they eat natural foods.

There is also evidence that our beliefs, this essentialism, play a role in our experience of the sensation (when eating, say).  If you believe Perrier water tastes better than tap water, it probably will. There’s a feedback loop there, based on your essentialist beliefs. If you believe the Van Gogh authentic, you’ll appreciate it more.

Effort contributes to history

How much effort you put into something (or someone else put into something) affects our essentialist beliefs about the object.  The effort adds to that history, adds to whether we like them or not.  Some examples:

• The Joshua Bell experiment – here the violinist played without the context of a big hall and much applause – without the context that contributes the history.
• Apparently 1950 cake mixes were unpopular, not because of taste, but because they didn’t require much work.  Just add milk.  When folk had to instead beat and add an egg – expend effort – they became better products.  This is called the IKEA effect (PDF) – “… labor leads to increased valuation only when labor results in successful completion of tasks”.  (The paper is a good read.)

Summary

Essentialism is pretty interesting – it appears that we’re all natural essentialists – and there is evidence that we gain this essentialism at a pretty young age (see The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought – I don’t have a copy, but it appears to be pretty interesting and relevant).

Thinking about how people construct histories of beliefs, and base their reasoning and even sensual pleasure on them, opens up doors to many human biases and behaviours.

Circumcision as genital mutilation

To be clear, I’m referring to male circumcision here, and circumcision performed outside of a medical necessity.

For many years, I considered being circumcised, and the act of circumcision, to be relatively benign. It’s ubiquitous, it’s commonplace. I’ve not heard a man complain, nor sue his parents, because of it.

Really though, circumcision is a form of genital mutilation forced upon children.

I read words to that effect a few years ago, and it made me stop in my tracks. Oh. I’d never thought of it like that.

It’s generally children that are circumcised, babies even. It’s forced – probably by a parent or church, carried out by the scalpel of a surgeon if you’re lucky. It’s forced in the sense that the child doesn’t have a say, is not informed or asked for consent. It’s a genital mutilation – an act that removes flesh from the body – yet one that doesn’t appear to be a mutilation because it’s so commonplace.

Years ago one of my friends expressed revulsion at an interesting fellow with a nose ring. I clearly remember thinking that my friend was a little confused – could he not see all the women around him that had earrings? Somehow the one piercing of flesh had become some commonplace that he no longer saw it for what it was.

Why

Why are parents so happy to have their children circumcised? There’s no malice. Rather, it’s probably because of what everyone else was doing, it’s what because of what their culture has led them to believe was the appropriate thing; recently perhaps because they thought there was a health benefit – though even that is in serious doubt.

Primarily though, it’s probably because of what a religion has ordained, for example the Jewish brit milah or the Muslim Khitan.

The Germans

A German court has recently ruled that circumcision is grievous bodily harm. According to the ruling:

the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighs the fundamental rights of the parents

It’s unfortunately not yet law, but it makes a lot of sense. It feels very much like the correct and moral stance to take. And it’s progressive – few countries, if any, ban circumcision because of the power of religious bodies.

Unsurprisingly, there are many religious parties that object, calling it an intrusion on religious freedom. What awful and barbaric rhetoric comes from these religious folk – believing that their culture, their beliefs, trump the bodily integrity of children.

Changing

That is malice coming from the religious groups – and you have to wonder what its source is. A vested interest in protecting their religion perhaps?

But I wonder whether the average man on the street being exposed to thinking about circumcision as bodily harm would agree, would continue to condone it? Or would they be swayed by the rhetoric of their religion – unthinkingly. Would they consider the truth, or would they simply take it as an affront on their identity, their tribe, their religion? That would be a blind belief in authority.

I wish there were epidemiological studies of the spread of ideas like this – ideas that touch on something so fundamental (body integrity and religion).

I also wonder whether it really does take the actions that are happening in Germany – the slow painful process of someone being sued, higher courts getting involved, someone thinking and lobbying, inter-lobby fighting and political gain, ruling, fighting and subsidence, wash, repeat – until there is consensus, and a wide enough spread of awareness to make the change stick. History is filled with this change – big instances being the racial and gay movements.

It’s so slow, so painful, so inter-generational.

How do you change folk from believing something is right because they always have believed it, and rather have them think about the act, and take a stance on what is right, not just what is common. How can society change more quickly, or is that an impossible pipe dream?

Well, my heart rate, to be specific.

Just before the gruelling hour of spinning began, she tried to get the new electronic device attached to her bike to sync with her heart rate monitor, and instead it picked up mine – which we both noticed.  But then we were into standing sprints, and nothing could be done about it.

So for that entire hour, she was an intimate observer of my performance .  It was intriguing: I felt compelled to try even harder – I was being monitored after all – but then I also realised the compulsion and tried to ignore it.   Mostly failing.

That was an interesting pressure, peer pressure – and the pressure to impress, or at least not to appear as a total slacker.  Moreover, that pressure was to a complete stranger.

It also got me thinking a little about privacy and self instrumentation.  This was a data privacy breech, albeit a little unusual.  I’ve had some of my DNA genotyped over at 23andMe – which often has me thinking about privacy.  As someone pointed out, someone knowing your DNA also gives that someone access to some of your children’s DNA. It’s a data privacy breech with hereditary consequences.

However, it’s not particularly predictive, and really, I think there’s more benefit (to the human race) than disadvantage. Opening up my DNA (in the sense of something like the Creative Commons Zero license) would let others potentially benefit – and efforts to really open it up are underway at places like openSNP.

My genome, my heart rate, and everything in betwen.  How much of ourselves should we be prepared to give away like this, to complete strangers?  What actions would it make us perform, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

I’m intrigued by the questions.  For now though, here’s the captured heart rate:

What has this to do with reason? Even though I was actively aware that I would probably be stressed into performing more than average, I couldn’t help myself. I still did. Either that, or I simply had an elevated heart rate that day…

An Example: Confirmation Bias
The errors in our reasoning that I’m talking about here are not mistakes we make while doing math in our head, but rather errors we make when supposedly reasoning towards a truth.

These errors in our reasoning abilities are often called human biases. A favourite of mine is the (motivated) confirmation bias – it’s ubiquitous, subtle, and scares the living hell out of me as a result. Here’s a nice definition from Wikipedia:

Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.  People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

This is unconscious, which makes it all the more pernicious. It’s “motivated” as people are motivated to defend a belief or hypothesis that they already hold, unwittingly selecting information to support it.

For example, if you believed in “alternative medicine” – your belief may be unconsciously bolstered whenever you read about the case of some poor child recovering from a dreadful disease after being dosed with a sugary homeopathic remedy.

Hypothesis-Determined Information Seeking and Interpretation

But what about the other facts: the number of people who died from the disease, the number of people who recovered without any medication whatsoever, and so on.

These hint at some of the theories scientists (see below for reference) are developing as to why we have a confirmation bias.

For example:

• “Restriction of attention to a favoured hypothesis” (it wasn’t chance, or a different medicine that saved them – its as the homeopathic medicine)
• “Preferential treatment of evidence supporting existing beliefs” (the people who recovered without the homeopathic medicine probably had some homeopathic trace elements in their food – and look, the ones that took it recovered.  Amazing.)
• “Overweighting positive confirmatory instances” (ZOMG look, 50 cases of recovery!  It must be true. (Ignoring the 1000 cases that didn’t, not even seeking them out.))

See the reference below for the science behind these, and experiments which appear to indicate that these are mechanisms behind confirmation bias.

Thoughts: Consistency and Religion and Free Will

• What scares me about the confirmation bias is that we’re all susceptible, it’s unconscious, and it leads to us draw false conclusions (such as earnestly believing in something that’s demonstrably false, such as homeopathy).  I wonder to what extent I am biased in this way.
• The scientific method is one way in which we try and ascertain truths without bias.  That doesn’t mean scientists are not without confirmation bias. But at least science has mechanisms to avoid them.
• This is very much related to consistency as well – as I wrote in Being Aware of Rationalising. I wonder if we have particular confirmation biases to maintain a consistent experience.
• I wonder to what extent the confirmation bias leads to someone continuing to believe in a religion.  Restriction of attention is evident in many believers, blithely turning an eye to contradictions (or other religions), as are preferential treatment of evidence and so on.  I guess we can be lenient here on what counts as evidence.

Finally, having a bias such as a confirmation bias severely undermines our notion of free will.  I’m not the conscious author of an opinion or reason here – it’s even more of an illusion if my own brain is filtering information behind my back, so to speak.  Where’s the free will in that?

References

This paper is awesome, and the source for my second section title: Confirmation Bias; A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises”, Review of General Psychology (Educational Publishing Foundation) 2 (2): 175–220 (PDF)

A lot of neuroscience, however, makes these questions more interesting, and more real.  For example, we know that we have somewhat modular brains, and that only some parts of our brain create that consciousness that we all believe makes us. We also know that we’re subject to a multitude of biases, such as the awful confirmation bias.

I typically associate Jon, me, with my conscious self and this other brain machinery that “does stuff”.  (Even defining self is difficult).  But that brain machinery does stuff, interacts with my consciousness on occasion, and really, isn’t under my control.

I know I’m not the conscious source of my thoughts and actions.   This is the bit that gets me.  If I was the conscious source of my thoughts and actions, then that would imply that I think of them before I think of them.  Well, I don’t.  Neither do you.  They just emerge.

In many ways, I’m an observer of my self.  Where’s the free will in that?

I’m also not responsible for my brain structure.  It’s the result of my history of interactions with the world – and I think this is a staggering thought.  It started out in a way I had no control over (I didn’t control the genes that provided the basic structure of my brain, nor its growth characteristics).  I had no control over the exposure of my growing brain to environment, to diet. I do now, to an extent, but it’s only a limited an extent – and of course, I’m already the result of all these causal chains. Over which I had no control.

So my brain and its current operation is the result of rich history of causal interactions over which I had no control.  My beliefs are the product of prior causes over which I had no control. Where’s the free will in that?

What’s fascinating are some of the implications of dispensing with the notion of free will – how does that impact our notion of morality, retribution, politics, and in particular religion (many religions rely on free will not being an illusion).  It’s mind blowing.

Well, I’ve just started down this road.  Perhaps I’ll end up reading Schopenhauer after all?  But to start off, here’s the talk (by Sam Harris) that got me all fired up, that covers all of these topics and more.  Enjoy:

Rationalising isn’t the same as being rational

I’m using the word rationalize in a very particular way here.  Here’s the Oxford Dictionary definition:

attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate

It’s an interesting dictionary definition which captures the connotation of “even if these are not true or appropriate”.

Rational, on the other hand, is:

based on or in accordance with reason or logic

So being rational is doing like Spock does – taking the facts, the premises, and applying logic, moving us towards reasoned conclusions.

Rationalising is almost the opposite – and that’s what’s fascinating.  You’re starting with a behaviour (me eating a muffin) and attempting to justify it with some plausible reasons (yeah, I exercised this morning).

Example: Morality, and art appreciation

There are a number if researchers investigating morality – how we reason about morality, come by our morals, how morality differs amongst cultures, what universal moral laws exist and so on.  It’s fascinating stuff – and many now believe that we make moral judgements without recourse to reason.  In other words, we judge whether some act is good or bad or permissible or forbidden based on some intuition, not conscious reasoning.  

So it appears we make moral judgements without rational reason.  But if you were asked about the judgment afterwards (“explain sir, why is it wrong to stab someone in self defence”), and given the time to think about a moral judgement, you would rationalise.  It’s difficult to be entirely rational here – we don’t have a formal, consistent set of moral foundations.

I believe I read something similar about art appreciation.  Intuitively we may like a piece of art.  If asked afterwards why we like the piece, we rationalise – providing plausible reasons (oh, the colour is just lovely darling).

Rationalising and self-deception

Being rational starts with facts/premises and works to a conclusion, while rationalising sort of starts with the conclusion, and tries to find supporting premises.

In my experience, those supporting premises just have to be “good enough” for me to support some behaviour. I’m pulling the wool over my own eyes – which makes me think rationalising is a key part of self-deception.

A pet theory of mine is that when we create these supporting premises as part of rationalising, we do it in a way that maintains consistency with our view of the world.  More on that in the future…

I’m sure I’ll never stop rationalising, but I wonder if it’s a useful exercise to recognise it a little more often than not – especially because those “plausible reasons” are not necessarily truth.