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capri0mniA bulleted list:
A couple weeks ago (or so), heard about a study (Via BBC Radio) of people who are born Deaf: that their sense of touch is much more sensitive than that of people born hearing -- to such the extent that variations in vibrations influence how they interpret what they see. Apparently, the parts of the temporal lobe that process sound for Hearing folks, switch over to interpreting touch, instead.
My take-away: 1) Makes sense (unintentional pun is unintentional), especially since the auditory center is already built for interpreting vibrations [through the air], the shift to interpreting touch would be tiny. 2) On Planet Eyeth, a "hearing" child would be considered "touch impaired," since it would be much harder for them to sense people trying to get their attention by stamping on the floor, etc., because the section of the brain best designed for that is distracted by noises, instead of the vibrations that have cultural meaning and purpose for communication.
Once again, I watched a Nova ScienceNow program titled "What makes us human?" And once again, there was special focus on spoken language (see above), and walking upright on two legs... (sigh). And there was another episode I am making a point not to watch, about "What the future holds" because a centerpiece segment is all about fancy robot legs that let paralyzed people walk with crutches, and thus, appear more normal... And that's the really important thing, isn't it, above all else?
Grr. in my grumpiness around the inherent ableism in all aspects of this perennial question, my answer is this: "What makes us 'human' is the human genome." Humans are no more unique on this planet than dolphins are unique, or squid, or maple trees, or ... And really: "What makes us human?" is euphemistic-- the unspoken (honest) question is: "What gives us the right to claim ownership of everything (animate or otherwise) we can touch?" The honest answer is, perhaps, "Nothing." But we (as a species) secretly, and unironically, believe that "Might makes Right," and so keep searching for that one secret ingredient in the formula that gives us the right to have the might: perhaps it's speech, or walking upright, or tool-making, or question-asking, or government bureaucracies, or religion, or morality... and so, when we look closer, and see those attributes in other species (or even in those species of humans besides us that have died out), a tone of panic and rationalization enters the narrative.
Speaking of which, I am growing sick and tired of the meme (in the non-Internet sense) that Homo Sapiens must be somehow superior to the Neanderthal, because we're still here and they've died out... Um, yeah. The Neanderthals lived successfully in Europe for roughly 300,000 years before "dying out." So far, modern humans have only colonized Europe for about 30,000 years. I'd say it's still a bit early yet for us to go around boasting that we're doing so much better. Come back to me with that argument in 200,000 years.
On the "Pet Health" episode of a local radio talk show today, the subject was Wolf-dogs, and why it's such a bad idea to try and breed them and keep them as pets. And the point was made that dogs are not wolves -- that "domestication" has created a very different beast, not only with different temperaments, but different digestive systems, and different brain wiring.
The most common "domestication narrative" goes something like this:
1) Wolves have a range of temperaments from fearful, to aggressive, to curious and calm...
2) Wolves who had fearful or aggressive temperaments ran away from human settlements. But the the curious and calm wolves hung around human settlements, picking out food from our garbage heaps, thus increasing their chances to survive and breed.
3) Over successive generations, this divergence in populations gave rise to a different and brand new animal -- the "dog," that wants to be our best friend...
My answer to that is:
A) Well, humans come with a range of temperaments, too, from fearful to aggressive, to curious and calm.
B) Humans who are fearful or aggressive would have either run away or thrown rocks when wolves approached, looking for scraps. But the calm, curious humans might have held out their hands to be sniffed, and even ventured to offer an ear-scritch or belly rub. Thus having the wolves around to bark a warning when strangers or predators approached, and also to help sniff out prey when we go hunting, thus increasing human chances to survive and breed.
C) Over successive generations, this divergence in populations gave rise to a different and brand new kind of Homo Sapiens -- the mensch, that wants to live in close proximity with large numbers of family and neighbors, and to settle down and start farming and building cities; our current phenotype hasn't changed as much as the wolf's to Labrador has, but I bet our brain wiring has.
In other words, humans and dogs domesticated each other...
And here's the outlier (but maybe even it's not entirely an outlier):
A bit ago (sometime between the New Year and now), I stumbled across this video from the Vlogbrothers Channel, wherein Hank Green discusses the cultural phenomenon of superhero creation: Superhero Creation Myths. His thesis is that each generation creates supernatural beings out of the things we fear and are fascinated by: sex, violence, disease {he didn't mention, but I will: demons/angels/Fey}, etc.
And that got me thinking about the abortive attempt I made, in 2010, to create my own comic book hero. I, too, gave "Gabriel" an origin rooted in my own fear, fascination, and disgust. This particular plot bunny was "mothered" by Christopher Reeve's address to the 1996 Democratic Convention (where the only option presented to improve the quality of life for disabled people is to cure all disabilities, ever, forever), and it was "fathered" by my desire to see a superhero universe where the disabled superhero was a member of an active and interconnected disabled community (instead of being the only disabled person to ever appear on the pages [hello Oracle and Daredevil]). And it also, for plot-driving reasons had a healthy dose of gene-splicing and worldwide Space conflicts over energy resources, and issues of poverty and privilege, and yeah...
But anyway, the kick-off for my story was a meteorite crashing to Earth, and from that crash, discoveries of new metal alloys that spark a boom in non-petroleum based fuels (and the advances in science in that arena lead to advances in science in the "cure 'all' disabilities" arena -- only really just 'cure all the disabilities we know about, now'), which leads to fighting over resources in the asteroid belt the way we now fight and go to war over oil.
So-- all the meteoroid news this last couple of weeks got me thinking about my story again, and maybe it would be more plausible to have the asteroid-hunting element part of the plot come in the nearer future than I'd set it in my original idea...
Good morning John, I am currently in Haiti.
No, I'm in my office, but by the time you see this, I will be in Haiti. So I'm pre-recording
this video because I'm not gonna have internet connection while I'm in Haiti.
And people have been asking me to make a video about the science of zombies, so I thought
that I would get that out of the way right now.
There is no science of zombies! There has never been, nor will there ever be - an undead
creature.
Life is an extraordinarily complicated balance of inputs and outputs and temperatures and
reactants and wastes and fuels, and if any of that stuff breaks down, none of it works.
Homeostasis - look it up, and then stop worrying about zombies.
But this does lead me to an interesting thought: How, in fiction, are supernatural beings created?
And what does that say about the people who write those stories and the people who are
interested in those stories?
So zombies, for example, are generally created by disease. Just like rabies, you get bit,
you get the disease, you get sick, you go crazy and then you die, and then you un-die
and then you, yourself, become a vector for the disease.
There are other examples for disease-based conversion from natural to supernatural, uh,
werewolves being another one like zombies, but also vampires.
Now vampires get their power from a disease, but it seems very different from zombies,
and it is in fact, quite different from zombies because zombies are a disease based in violence;
whereas vampires are a disease based in romance-sexy-time. Which kinda makes sense why women are more
interested in the vampires stuff, and the men are more interested in the zombie stuff,
because it's like action movies versus chick-flicks. Except that supernatural monsters version
of that argument.
But all of this is pretty unsurprising because sex, and disease and violence, probably some
of the most important forces in the lives of early humans, but newer myths, created
by fiction writers and a lot of comic writers provide the same kind of insight.
Superheroes nowadays don't so much get their power from disease and sex and violence, superheroes,
which began to be created in the 1930s or so, get their power from things that we believe,
or believed, hold great power.
Spiderman is a great example, because once upon a time, he got his powers from being
bitten by a radioactive spider, and that was back when radioactivity and atomic power held
all this promise of potential, like, cheap energy for everyone and also the potential
for the destruction of the entire world.
But then when Spiderman got revamped for the next generation, they cut out the radioactivity
- cause that wasn't sexy any more - and instead they put in a genetically modified spider.
And thus, we can say about ourselves as consumers of content, that the aura of mystery and power
and fear that once surrounded radioactivity and atomic energy now has moved over into
genetically modified stuff.
All these things that within our culture hold a great deal of power and mystique, like money
and technical expertise and the government as a hero and the government as a villain,
atomic power, outer-space, the internet, particle physics, our genes, our brains - our obsession
with all these things have grown and waned over the years, as has their use in the creation
of superheroes.
And of course, John, in your zombie apocalypse novella, you did this very thing - you took
a source of power and fear and mystery for humanity, the genetic engineering of crops,
and you mixed it with the existing zombie myth to get zombies who died and then liked
to plant lots of corn. You fell directly into the archetype, like everybody else. Of course,
everyone falls in the archetype - that's what archetypes are for.
So I'm always keeping my eye out for new and unique ways that superheroes are being created,
because I think it's a really clear indicator of what we're becoming obsessed with and what
we're becoming afraid of.
For example, there's a new movie coming out in which an out of work writer takes this
pill, and he becomes a super-genius, and of course, this reflects our fear and fascination
about what is going on with brain chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
Superheroes and other super natural beings are, of course, fictional, and they seem like
they're just there for fun, but they do provide us, I think, with a great opportunity to analyze
ourselves and what we're becoming obsessed with and what we're becoming afraid of.
Interestingly, those two things - often the same thing.
So it's nice to see that this entire shelf of science fiction here, in fact, allows me
to learn more about us as humans.
John, I'll see you on Monday.
My take-away: 1) Makes sense (unintentional pun is unintentional), especially since the auditory center is already built for interpreting vibrations [through the air], the shift to interpreting touch would be tiny. 2) On Planet Eyeth, a "hearing" child would be considered "touch impaired," since it would be much harder for them to sense people trying to get their attention by stamping on the floor, etc., because the section of the brain best designed for that is distracted by noises, instead of the vibrations that have cultural meaning and purpose for communication.
Grr. in my grumpiness around the inherent ableism in all aspects of this perennial question, my answer is this: "What makes us 'human' is the human genome." Humans are no more unique on this planet than dolphins are unique, or squid, or maple trees, or ... And really: "What makes us human?" is euphemistic-- the unspoken (honest) question is: "What gives us the right to claim ownership of everything (animate or otherwise) we can touch?" The honest answer is, perhaps, "Nothing." But we (as a species) secretly, and unironically, believe that "Might makes Right," and so keep searching for that one secret ingredient in the formula that gives us the right to have the might: perhaps it's speech, or walking upright, or tool-making, or question-asking, or government bureaucracies, or religion, or morality... and so, when we look closer, and see those attributes in other species (or even in those species of humans besides us that have died out), a tone of panic and rationalization enters the narrative.
The most common "domestication narrative" goes something like this:
1) Wolves have a range of temperaments from fearful, to aggressive, to curious and calm...
2) Wolves who had fearful or aggressive temperaments ran away from human settlements. But the the curious and calm wolves hung around human settlements, picking out food from our garbage heaps, thus increasing their chances to survive and breed.
3) Over successive generations, this divergence in populations gave rise to a different and brand new animal -- the "dog," that wants to be our best friend...
My answer to that is:
A) Well, humans come with a range of temperaments, too, from fearful to aggressive, to curious and calm.
B) Humans who are fearful or aggressive would have either run away or thrown rocks when wolves approached, looking for scraps. But the calm, curious humans might have held out their hands to be sniffed, and even ventured to offer an ear-scritch or belly rub. Thus having the wolves around to bark a warning when strangers or predators approached, and also to help sniff out prey when we go hunting, thus increasing human chances to survive and breed.
C) Over successive generations, this divergence in populations gave rise to a different and brand new kind of Homo Sapiens -- the mensch, that wants to live in close proximity with large numbers of family and neighbors, and to settle down and start farming and building cities; our current phenotype hasn't changed as much as the wolf's to Labrador has, but I bet our brain wiring has.
In other words, humans and dogs domesticated each other...
And here's the outlier (but maybe even it's not entirely an outlier):
And that got me thinking about the abortive attempt I made, in 2010, to create my own comic book hero. I, too, gave "Gabriel" an origin rooted in my own fear, fascination, and disgust. This particular plot bunny was "mothered" by Christopher Reeve's address to the 1996 Democratic Convention (where the only option presented to improve the quality of life for disabled people is to cure all disabilities, ever, forever), and it was "fathered" by my desire to see a superhero universe where the disabled superhero was a member of an active and interconnected disabled community (instead of being the only disabled person to ever appear on the pages [hello Oracle and Daredevil]). And it also, for plot-driving reasons had a healthy dose of gene-splicing and worldwide Space conflicts over energy resources, and issues of poverty and privilege, and yeah...
But anyway, the kick-off for my story was a meteorite crashing to Earth, and from that crash, discoveries of new metal alloys that spark a boom in non-petroleum based fuels (and the advances in science in that arena lead to advances in science in the "cure 'all' disabilities" arena -- only really just 'cure all the disabilities we know about, now'), which leads to fighting over resources in the asteroid belt the way we now fight and go to war over oil.
So-- all the meteoroid news this last couple of weeks got me thinking about my story again, and maybe it would be more plausible to have the asteroid-hunting element part of the plot come in the nearer future than I'd set it in my original idea...
Good morning John, I am currently in Haiti.
No, I'm in my office, but by the time you see this, I will be in Haiti. So I'm pre-recording
this video because I'm not gonna have internet connection while I'm in Haiti.
And people have been asking me to make a video about the science of zombies, so I thought
that I would get that out of the way right now.
There is no science of zombies! There has never been, nor will there ever be - an undead
creature.
Life is an extraordinarily complicated balance of inputs and outputs and temperatures and
reactants and wastes and fuels, and if any of that stuff breaks down, none of it works.
Homeostasis - look it up, and then stop worrying about zombies.
But this does lead me to an interesting thought: How, in fiction, are supernatural beings created?
And what does that say about the people who write those stories and the people who are
interested in those stories?
So zombies, for example, are generally created by disease. Just like rabies, you get bit,
you get the disease, you get sick, you go crazy and then you die, and then you un-die
and then you, yourself, become a vector for the disease.
There are other examples for disease-based conversion from natural to supernatural, uh,
werewolves being another one like zombies, but also vampires.
Now vampires get their power from a disease, but it seems very different from zombies,
and it is in fact, quite different from zombies because zombies are a disease based in violence;
whereas vampires are a disease based in romance-sexy-time. Which kinda makes sense why women are more
interested in the vampires stuff, and the men are more interested in the zombie stuff,
because it's like action movies versus chick-flicks. Except that supernatural monsters version
of that argument.
But all of this is pretty unsurprising because sex, and disease and violence, probably some
of the most important forces in the lives of early humans, but newer myths, created
by fiction writers and a lot of comic writers provide the same kind of insight.
Superheroes nowadays don't so much get their power from disease and sex and violence, superheroes,
which began to be created in the 1930s or so, get their power from things that we believe,
or believed, hold great power.
Spiderman is a great example, because once upon a time, he got his powers from being
bitten by a radioactive spider, and that was back when radioactivity and atomic power held
all this promise of potential, like, cheap energy for everyone and also the potential
for the destruction of the entire world.
But then when Spiderman got revamped for the next generation, they cut out the radioactivity
- cause that wasn't sexy any more - and instead they put in a genetically modified spider.
And thus, we can say about ourselves as consumers of content, that the aura of mystery and power
and fear that once surrounded radioactivity and atomic energy now has moved over into
genetically modified stuff.
All these things that within our culture hold a great deal of power and mystique, like money
and technical expertise and the government as a hero and the government as a villain,
atomic power, outer-space, the internet, particle physics, our genes, our brains - our obsession
with all these things have grown and waned over the years, as has their use in the creation
of superheroes.
And of course, John, in your zombie apocalypse novella, you did this very thing - you took
a source of power and fear and mystery for humanity, the genetic engineering of crops,
and you mixed it with the existing zombie myth to get zombies who died and then liked
to plant lots of corn. You fell directly into the archetype, like everybody else. Of course,
everyone falls in the archetype - that's what archetypes are for.
So I'm always keeping my eye out for new and unique ways that superheroes are being created,
because I think it's a really clear indicator of what we're becoming obsessed with and what
we're becoming afraid of.
For example, there's a new movie coming out in which an out of work writer takes this
pill, and he becomes a super-genius, and of course, this reflects our fear and fascination
about what is going on with brain chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
Superheroes and other super natural beings are, of course, fictional, and they seem like
they're just there for fun, but they do provide us, I think, with a great opportunity to analyze
ourselves and what we're becoming obsessed with and what we're becoming afraid of.
Interestingly, those two things - often the same thing.
So it's nice to see that this entire shelf of science fiction here, in fact, allows me
to learn more about us as humans.
John, I'll see you on Monday.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 04:18 am (UTC)