h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To do anything complex, like recognising peoples' emotions from their facial expressions, is likely to involve quite a large number of brain systems, and disability could result from a failure of any one of them.
It has been suggested that at least some forms of autism result from a failure to perceive other people AS other people rather than as things. This also has a bearing on the philosophical problem of other minds, and how we recognise them.

Noggin

Toxx, you a hard man to convince!
We have a chicken and egg situation; is the autistic child unable to see that a person is sad because of the amygdala malfunction or is the amygdala malfunction due to the child being autistic? In the programme a range of children were given the test; a girl with William's syndrome and an IQ of about 60 had no trouble at all with the photos.


Alji the Magus

Well, Alji. This time I completely agree with Noggin's message simulposted with yours. If we think of the facial expression interpretation system as an electrical circuit, then malfunction of any component could render any or all of the others apparently dead to the relevant stimuli.

As I've already mentioned, this could be an occurrent phenomenon or a consequence of insufficient development/learning in the past due to some abnormality. This stuff being included in the area of my own discipline, it's inevitable that I'm going to be the toughest critic. That's why we have 'peer review'.

I remember reading something a while back about how autistic children can be taught appropriate social reactions by presenting them as logical if/then/else situations. As opposed to letting them figure it out for themselves as most others have to.

What they actually experience inside their minds is a different matter though. Programming someone to simulate the recognition of others' emotions isn't the same as actually having the necessary empathy.

On the BBC's Instincts program, an experiement with small children showed that young children cannot empathise.
Two children were shown a marble under one of three cups. Say the one on the right. One child was asked to leave and the marble was moved.
When the remaining child was asked where the other child would say the marble was now, he said in the new place.
The 'normally' developing child was unable to differentiate his thoughts. He assumed that what he knew everybody knew. He could see/feel no difference between himself and others.
The ability to feel how others think comes in at around the age of eight, so this program says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/faceperception1/

Greetings, #212700. Piaget was doing this kind of thing long ago and concluded that the young child is egocentric in this respect. The problem with this kind of thing is being sure that the child understands the question/task. Of course, adults would understand it in a familiar way to us, but a child?

Piaget also showed children a set of a few white toy cows and many more black ones. He asked: "Are there more cows, or more black cows?". The children overwhelmingly answered: "More black cows". This seems to be a failure to grasp the question.

When an experiment was performed similar to the one that you describe but with a 'silly teddy' puppet instead of another child or the experimenter's view being required, there was a better chance that the child would know what 'silly teddy' thought. Chew on that.

Ah but Guy; aren't you moving the goalposts? If children can do it after training, this tells us quite a bit about what is going wrong, does it not? It has to be at the learning, planning or understanding stage (higher mental processes) rather than at the detailed perceptual level.

It rather as though we were telling them: "Use your amygdala" and they were saying: "OK"! That may well be what is happening, although I use an inappropriate level of description for normal communication.

Doubtless, empathy is one factor that could cue the understanding and planning of the task - but is it the only one? I don't actually disagree that you might be correct, but this is a more complex and interesting topic than you appear to suggest.

Toxxin, you seem to be lacking a little cognative ability! #212700 is Hasslefree.

Toxx, how good are you at reading people?


Alji the Magus

You're right of course Alji! Must have Paged up twice to check whose message I was replying to or some such. Sorry Hass and #212700.

Fraid 'reading people' isn't a phrase I really understand. I can, however, often work out how to tweak a psychological experiment in order to demonstrate what is required. Guess that's a sort of empathy. Is that an answer? It tends to apply to people in general rather than individuals, because that is my main interest, academically speaking.

Hey Alji, I didn't make a mistake after all! Hass and #212700 are one and the same. If you change your name, it changes on all existing posts also. She must have switched after I replied. It has also changed on previous pages.

In addition, Alji; I see you already knew that and were just winding me up. I see you've left a couple of replies on her new page.

"People would dedicate their lives to converting others to their religions"

...not the Dalai Lama, who says that the best religion for an individual is the one which is most conducive to helping that person become wiser or more compassionate.

That seems to be the thread of quite a bit of discussion here, I think.

He has further suggested that it is often better to choose the local majority religion if you don't have a preference leading in a particular different direction, as this is likely to be the one with the best support structures which will assist your spiritual development, and has suggested that those in the West might wish to follow Christianity in that case.

What do you think?

Reminds me of some things said on last night's Moral Maze, Bod. Kinda pragmatic, but where does truth come into it?

Welcome back Bod!

Toxx, I was just pointing out Hass is #212700; no wind up intended.

I was watching two programmes yesterday, one about Bill Hamilton and the other about 'Kennewick Man'.
Bill Hamilton, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Oxford, in recent years, became interested in the origins of HIV , the virus that causes AIDS . Seeing that the question could only be resolved with viral samples from wild chimpanzees, he went off to get some. On the second of two trips to Congo, he fell sick with a tropical disease and died. Following some links took me to the site where there was an article about the amygdala. The link I had followed was about polio virus contaminated with live simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in the late 1950's. Clicking on the Home link at the bottom of the article tok me to a list of articles, one of which was a follow up on the 'Kennewick Man' story.
At the end of the 'Kennewick Man' programme the bones were repatriated to the American Indian tribes who had claimed them. The article was about Justice John Jelderks, Justice Magistrate of the United States District Court in Portland, Oregon, handing down the long-awaited decision on the so-called 'Kennewick Man' case last August. The main gist of the argument was that the prevailing legislation that should have dictated what happened to the bones should have been the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), not the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Kennewick Man is one of the oldest skeletal remains found in the US of A. dating from about 7,500 BC. See http://www.viewzone.com/kennewick.html




Alji the Magus

That interpretation had since occurred to me, Alji. I'd already posted too many in a row tho.

Amazing how badly the lawgivers and interpreters understand the law. Here's an example: one of our laws refers to an offence occurring if an image is 'indecent'. A jury is to decide whether it is indecent or not. The Human Rights Act gives us a right to freedom of thought and conscience. What is the judgement of indecency or otherwise if not a judgement for ones own thought and conscience? So how can a jury contradict it? Yet folks have been jailed on the strength of this stuff!

Yes, I had to change my name . A post I wrote a few pages back explained that I was the researcher. Which alji responded to very helpfully.

Alji said that I was that person.

How good are you at reading posts Toxx?

Eek! Guilty! Sometimes I skip. Maybe I even forget!

To generalise a little from my earlier post: how can any form of censorship be consistent with freedom of thought and conscience?

I was watching a program on the Pyramids.
I believe the theory that it was not built by slaves by by willing men.
The new thinking is that this amazing structure which has been on the Earth longer than any of us and will still be standing when we're all gone, was built because the workers believed in their Gods.
Belief built something that modern men still think has to have had some higher intelligence to plan and perform.
Is this what they mean by faith moving mountains?
Would the Pyramids have existed if the men had no beliefs?
Does believing in something bigger than ourselves make us perform 'miracles'?
Could an atheist build a Pyramid and would he/she want to?

I was watching a program on the Pyramids.
I believe the theory that it was not built by slaves by by willing men.
The new thinking is that this amazing structure which has been on the Earth longer than any of us and will still be standing when we're all gone, was built because the workers believed in their Gods.
Belief built something that modern men still think has to have had some higher intelligence to plan and perform.
Is this what they mean by faith moving mountains?
Would the Pyramids have existed if the men had no beliefs?
Does believing in something bigger than ourselves make us perform 'miracles'?
Could an atheist build a Pyramid and would he/she want to?