Being Human

[The following post was so relevant to our discussions, I stole the whole thing from Boing Boing]

Are people with autism disfunctional? Are psychopaths genetically adapted to survive by exploiting the rest of us?

CBC's Quirks and Quarks, my favorite science radio program, has run a couple of pieces recently about the idea that some of what we think of as "disorders" in human behavior can be more usefully treated as speciation -- a different kind of human.

Psychopaths: Quirks talks to research psychologists about the biological basis for psychopathy -- and the fact that psychopaths are sexually profligate and have lots of kids. Psychopathic rapists target fertile women -- not children or old women.

Dr. Marnie Rice is a psychologist with the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, in Penetanguishene, Ontario. She studies criminal psychopaths who are incarcerated there. She views psychopathic behaviour as an evolved survival strategy. She says that there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest that psychopaths are mentally ill but there’s good reason to believe that their disturbing behaviour is an evolved trait. She says psychopaths have evolved to capitalize in a particular environmental niche -- namely preying on the rest of society.

Autism: A noted cognitive nueroscientist and one of his patients (who has autism) team up to advance the hypothesis that autism isn't a disorder, but simply a different kind of person. They say that arguing that autism makes you "good at numbers" but "bad at socializing" is like taking a dog and saying that it's a special kind of cat that's "bad at climbing" but "good at fetching slippers." Autism makes you a different kind of person, most usefully compared to other people with autism.

On a recent posting by Patty2, she mentioned “laughter clubs”. That sparked an interest…I wanted to learn a more about laughter and the relation to the brain as well as laughter’s benefits.

Laughter...it's fun...it's funny...but why do we do it? Why can't you tickle yourself? What part of the brain is responsible for laughter and humor? There are not many answers to these questions because there have not been very many experiments on the topic of laughter. Part of the reason for this is that laughter is not a big clinical problem. People do not go to the doctor because they are laughing and feel good. On the other hand, there are a some people with brain damage that MAY cause uncontrollable, abnormal laughter. Also, there is a type of epilepsy with gelastic seizures...these seizures cause people to laugh.

Here is a link to a little more on laughter. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/laugh.html

I could not link the video to here, but on CNN.Com they have a video report about men being smarter (hey don't bite my head off they said it). Also from this video they have additional links to brain images that are pretty neat to check out.

Last Saturday Rick said that we tend to "be-little" the amazing things we do.  He said something close to that, correct me if I am wrong, I don't want to mis-quote his intentions.  I have been really thinking a lot about that this past week.  I know, I am not grounding my thoughts in our actual reading, and this is frustrating to myself and probably the reader.  Nonetheless, I have been thinking about how amazing it is as babies the ability to experiment with movement, learning how to speak, walk, have expectations, mind read, and the list goes on.  It makes me get really excited about how amazing we are as individuals.  Regarding human development we are all on the scale of humanity.  I like how Patty put it in one of her blogs the different sub-catagories of human develoment.  I just felt really up-lifted regarding the amazingly "simple" tasks our bodies naturally develope and perform.  It is really cool and I am excited to learn more about it.  

Another interesting article from the NY Times: 

 Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with rich personal networks — who are married, have close family and friends, are active in social and religious groups — recover more quickly from disease and live longer. But now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data.

The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person.

I remember hearing about these time-out rooms in class.  This is good news:   

OLYMPIA — An independent review of the Olympia School District’s autism program this fall represents a big step in the right direction for autistic children, some parents said at a meeting Tuesday

http://www.theolympian.com/112/story/44632.html

I found the topic of “disgust” in the reading this week rather interesting. This article discusses the anatomy of disgust.

For many of us, 21st century life is very clean. Much of our lives is devoted to avoiding aspects of life which disgust us. The middle classes live in pristine suburbs, removed from the dirt and grime of inner cities. They avoid public transport so as not to be pressed up against strangers. They shop in supermarkets which package their food in a comfortingly sterile way, giving no hint of the abattoir it emanated from.

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/A/anatomy_disgust/intro.html

I have worked very hard to gain this education. I deeply value the sharing of information. My voice, my words, my thoughts, are clearly presented. People may hear what I have to say because I give the information in an understandable articulate manner.

When I open a text book or surf the web for information I expect to be presented with  knowledge that someone has worked hard at conceiving and presenting.  Ideas, concepts, theories, and new ways of communicating have changed my thinking and therefore, my life.  I grow, I develop, my mind evolves.  I wake up with a new perspective.  I live and I mature.

My experience with seemingly endless academic research, writing and formatting, rewriting again, discussing and then presenting my discoveries into a comprehensible reasonable presentation is my purpose in being here.

I have the utmost respect for all of you and I believe we can make this site into an important informative tool for all who happen to click on. My point is, there is no mature reason to use foul ignorant language to express ourselves. We have more to offer, don't we?

My sister brought this to my attention while I was chatting with her on-line and thought this might be an interesting article to share with everyone. Makes you wonder about people when they start fighting over a pothole. Hopefully the link below will work as I am still learning how to do that on here.

link.

In a small but highly provocative study, a UW-Madison research team has found, for the first time, that a short program in "mindfulness meditation" produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system. - source

This is a couple of years old, but still worth looking at. It is one study from the HealthEmotions Research Institute located at the University of Wisconsin. Their goal is to scientifically determine how emotions influence health. They have quite a few studies going on at the moment, and I look forward to seeing the results of all of them.

I think that this sort of study speaks to a side of human development that we haven't discussed a lot in class. The conscious development of the self, through discipline and choice.

I like to dwell on this aspect of development, as it is the part we have a lot of control over. I can't change my parents or my heredity. I can have a direct impact on the way my brain functions and how I navigate what I've been given though.

You can read more about how science is approaching meditation here and here.

Since we are reading a lot in Bloom's book about emotions and why they may exist, you might also find how people are manipulating their emotions for their own gain interesting. There is a "new" practice called Laughter Therapy that has become quite popular with some folks. Here is a Laughter Yoga page that has several short movies about the practice. They even go into "laughter clubs" as they exist in India.

There was an interesting article in the NY Times a couple days ago about Elephants displaying unusual behavior. All across Africa, India and parts of Southeast Asia, elephants have been striking out, destroying villages and crops, attacking and killing human beings, killing other elephants and raping and killing rhinos. They claim that elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma. I found this similar to human society.

The story is long. Below are a couple excerpts - It is attached too.

For a number of biologists and ethologists who have spent their careers studying elephant behavior, the attacks have become so abnormal in both number and kind that they can no longer be attributed entirely to the customary factors. Typically, elephant researchers have cited, as a cause of aggression, the high levels of testosterone in newly matured male elephants or the competition for land and resources between elephants and humans. But in ‘‘Elephant Breakdown,’’ a 2005 essay in the journal Nature, Bradshaw and several colleagues argued that today’s elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma. Decades of poaching and culling and habitat loss, they claim, have so disrupted the intricate web of familial and societal relations by which young elephants have traditionally been raised in the wild, and by which established elephant herds are governed, that what we are now witnessing is nothing less than a precipitous collapse of elephant culture.

Everybody pretty much agrees that the relationship between elephants and people has dramatically changed,’’ Bradshaw told me recently. ‘‘What we are seeing today is extraordinary. Where for centuries humans and elephants lived in relatively peaceful coexistence, there is now hostility and violence. Now, I use the term ‘violence’ because of the intentionality associated with it, both in the aggression of humans and, at times, the recently observed behavior of elephants.’’

I went to Oprah's website and she goes more in depth about her show last Friday.  If anyone missed the show or would like a little bit more information they should go check it out.  One of the sections has some questions that are very interesting and probably goes a long way in explaining why some children act the way the do and why parents just cannot say NO. 

Do you think your inability to say no is harming your kids? These are three questions you need to ask yourself.

 

Here is the website where you can find those questions and more.

 www.oprah.com

My second hour of TV, I was channel flipping and stopped on UWTV because the speaker was discussing a diagram showing how 'sensitive responsive parenting can curb aggression development in children. This subject naturally caught my eye because of discussio'ns on aggression in class. At ages 1-3, tantrums and aggression are recognized and if the correct parenting style is used, can be curbed between the ages of 4-5. However, if there is a 'disrupted developmental trajectory' (i.e. lack of nurturing, unstable childcare), ages 4-5 will manifest 'emotional dysregulation', 'social skill deficits', and 'lack of friendship'.

The presenter was Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, FAAN, Professor and Director of the UW Parenting Clinic presenting at the 30th Annual Faculty Lecture. Her book is entitled "Helping Young Aggression Beat the Odds" and discusses techniques which parents, teachers, and kids can use when joined together. She feels that there is a percentage of kids with aggressive disorders that are not being helped. Dr. WS says less than 10% of kids who need conduct help get it. Parents should ask for help when a child refuses to do what s/he is asked 8 out of 10 times. She also has other criteria for determining if a child has a conduct disorder. She mentioned 2 conduct disorders: Conduct Disorder (CD) and Oppositional Disposition Disorder (ODD).

These labels are discouraging to me. In my opinion, labeling anyone at any age is detrimental to one's ultimate recovery. I'm not discrediting Dr. Webster-Stratton, I agree with all of her techniques recognizing she didn't invent these disorders or the process of diagnosis. I just think kids have a hard enough time growing up without having to overcome added stigma. Adults, I think, would know better. Being 'normal' was crappy enough. I think pharmacology has become a too-powerful agent in our mental health community.

Back to article...Dr. WS says the earlier the intervention of ths behavior the better, preferably before there has been a diagnosis. Between the ages of 3-8, behavior is more malleable and changeable. Some ways to change these aggressive behaviors is by instituting programs which encourage self-regulation and problem solving. She also has workshops where she teaches parent self-care and 'how to stay calm' techniques.

I just spent two hours watching television when I was supposed to be doing my homework and I don't feel bad about it because the TV turned into my homework. This afternoon, I was sitting at my computer doing some homework with the TV on in the other room for background noise. At 3 o'clock, 'Northwest Afternoon' comes on discussing varied topics of interest. I heard the host of the show announcing the special guest who was the author of "The Elephant in the Living Room:  making TV work for your kids".  Attention grabbed, I bagged my current assignment and watched the show finding the relevancy of the subject matter ironic.  The book gives tips on how to control what kids are watching whether they are at home, at a friend's house, or in this day and age, individual parents' house in shared custody. The main question addressed is what is the importance of media in our lives and the lives of our children?  I was taking notes as quickly as I could but only got the first part of the author's name:  Dr. Dimitri Ch_?. I'm going to investigate further on komo's website because I also missed the first two items on his list of 'Top 5 things not to do when it comes to kids and TV watching' 1.?, 2.?, 3. not setting an example.  Parents should set the standard on what to watch and when to watch., 4. underestimating commercials. Parents should realize the power that commercials have to sway young minds. Example: Young boy thinking that he, too, can have the hot girl in the commercial if he drinks the right beer., 5. letting kids watch alone. Parents should take the time to watch TV with their kids so they can observe reactions and clarify content when necessary.  If I can find the rest of the information, I'll post a link! 

I honestly can't believe that MUDs are being discussed now, after almost everyone on the net has abandoned them.

It is like watching a debate about whether the Model T is taking humanity in the wrong direction. This debate is even more ridiculous though, because most of the experts with an opinion on this stuff have never even meaningfully participated in the things they are commenting on. Their outsider interpretation is just academese drivel.They wouldn't even know these things if they saw them!

One of the best places to hook up with a MUD on the web would be The Mud Connector , and you can check the population of that site. When I was there, it was at 74,063 members distributed over 1,642 games.

Let's get modern for a moment and look at 2006. Welcome to the land of the MMORPG! World of Warcraft alone has seven million subscribers.

In an old MUD you might see a screen like this. In a modern MMORPG you might see a screen like this.

Even smaller populations like that found on Second Life (where there are only about 873,495 people right now) utterly dwarf MUDs and their ilk. (Second Life is one of the games with US dollars trading hands. When I visited the site said that over $271, 563 US Dollars had been spent in the last 24 hours. This sort of thing was never accomplished in MUDs.)

The program SimLife is just as ridiculously outdated. The writer gets thrown by a word like "orgot", as if she has never heard an imaginary word used during gameplay before or insider terminology. (An orgot is the word for a simulated organism in the game. That's it.)

In class we saw a picture of a baby that had electrodes on his head as a way of monitoring his brains responses.  It reminded me of an article that was in the News Tribune paper June 25, 2006. 

     "Children are born learning, The most remarkable fact is not just that they're learning but that they engaged inactive hypothesis-testing.  There's a drive to understand that seems innate in human beings. " 

The article was very fascinating and goes along with what we have been discussing.  It is worth trying to find.   I can not find the article online anymore.   I will have the article just in case someone is interested in reading it. 

ok, so to start off with i just need to say that i think the "search for identity" is a load of bullshit. as soon as i heard that that was the topic for the world cafe thing i started mentally beating my head on the table and asking why me. Most people seem to have this idea that to be happy and complete you have to figure out "who" you are. this is retarted and limiting. "do i contradict myself? very well then i contradict myself. i am large and contain multitudes." god bless walt whitman.

now with this in mind i really liked and really disliked some of the things illich and brown said. illich's view on schools and education is amazing. the first professor i had here at evergreen was a pretty close friend of his and talked about the meetings which they mentioned. and they'd do exactly as they said. sit around a table with food and wine and talk. but back on subject.

on the one hand i think they're off on saying that being changed by the institutionalized objects is a bad thing. now i admit in some cases it is but most of that is just human stupidity and i think as far as those people are concerned they're just part of the population i'm hoping won't breed. But, on the whole, isn't that what evolution and growing up is? we are changed and shapped by our enviroments. it just so happens that our environment revolves around technology. i am blessed in that i got to grow up living right infront of a protected green belt and would like the same for my children but just because someone is raised in the city away from forests and swamps and all manner of wild life doesn't make the deficiant in any ways. it just makes them proficiant in another environment.

 i do agree with the "degrading the majority of people" however. but people can also learn to have their fore-father's/-mother's strenght of character and self confidence.

i LOVED the relationship as a "quint" but also want to say lay of bach, it was just a new era of music.

So, I live on the east end of Olympia in this house which happens to have a swamp in the back yard. Every now and again I get the urge to sit around the swamp and play "Darwin". For those of you who have yet to have the pleasure of playing a round of "Darwin"here's how it works: step1-you sit, step 2-you watch, and thats how you play. When you're done with your round I find it best to take some time to think about what you've seen and how you can learn from it. This afternoon I decided to get crazy, grab a chair, and play some "Darwin." I noticed something today I had yet to pick up on in all my previous "game time"... here's what I got: