10 NEUROSCIENZE ROBOT MARZIANI DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne

10 NEUROSCIENZE ANIMALI ROBOT MARZIANI E DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne darwinnonbasta unascienzadellanima? correlazionieleggi animaanimale ilmisterodellamutazione animasenzavantaggievolutivi lariduzioneimpossibile lascienzaimpossibile

10.Read more at location 2336

Note: 10@@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit

In this chapter I come to the questions of when the soul begins to exist in the individual humanRead more at location 2337

Note: QUANDO NASCE? Edit

the answers to these questions depend in part on the answers to detailed questions of physiology which I shall not attempt to provide, I hope to show what kind of physiological information is relevantRead more at location 2339

Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit

what is it for a man to have a soul when he is not having any conscious episodes (e.g. during some periods of deep sleep).Read more at location 2340

Note: ANIMA SENZA COSCIENZA Edit

The Existence of Consciousness Read more at location 2343

Note: TITOLO Edit

The evidence available to others that some man is currently conscious will, we saw in earlier chapters, be his testimony and certain patterns of bodily behaviour which manifest his conscious life (e.g. screaming when in pain).Read more at location 2348

Note: SOLIPSISMO Edit

This direct evidence of consciousness is found to be correlated with physiological phenomena.Read more at location 2353

Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit

the electrical rhythm of a man's brain, his EEG, is found to have a certain pattern.Read more at location 2353

Add a note

evidence of the connection of EEG rhythm with consciousness, means that (since a man's own apparent memory of whether he was at some time conscious or not can err, like all memory) it can be used to correct apparent memory-e.g. if a man woken up from what by EEG rhythm evidence is deep dreamless sleep claims that he was woken from a long dream, the EEG evidence acts at least to cast doubt on his claimRead more at location 2356

Note: LA CORREZIONE Edit

The same goes for the evidence of rapid eye movements during sleep (REMs) showing that a man is dreaming. Read more at location 2361

Add a note

there are periods of deep sleep in which a man is not conscious at all.Read more at location 2362

Note: SONNO PROFONDO Edit

The absence of consciousness for those periods is clearly dependent on the state of the brain, and not vice versa. A man can be made unconscious-by drugs, being knocked out, etc.-or woken up. The functioning of the soul depends on the correct functioning of the brain.Read more at location 2364

Note: NESSO Edit

there is no conscious life before some point between conception and birth. No one can recall conscious episodes immediately after conception, there are no bodily movements evidential of sensations, thoughts, or purposings, and there is no brain to evince the electrical patterns characteristic of consciousness.Read more at location 2366

Note: NASCITA Edit

The evidence suggests that consciousness originates when the foetus has a brain with the kind of electrical rhythms characteristicRead more at location 2368

Note: IL CERVELLO DEL FETO Edit

The Existence of the Soul Read more at location 2369

Note: TITOLO Edit

What I have argued so far is that without a functioning brain, the soul will not function (i.e. have conscious episodes)-not that it will not exist.Read more at location 2369

Note: FUNZIONARE ED ESISTERE Edit

The distinction between existence and functioning is clear enough in the case of a material substance, which has some sort of life (e.g. a plant) or some sort of working (e.g. a machine). The substance continues to exist so long as the matter of which it is made continues to existRead more at location 2371

Note: ESISTE LA MATERIA ESISTE LA COSA Edit

But it functions only so long as normal life-processes or machine-use continue.Read more at location 2373

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The clock exists, when it no longer tells the time, so long as the parts remain joined in roughly the normal way;Read more at location 2373

Note: OROLOGIO Edit

a dead tree is still a tree,Read more at location 2374

Add a note

The soul functions while it is the subject of conscious episodes-while it has sensations or thoughts or purposes. But is it still there when the man is asleep, having no conscious episodes?Read more at location 2375

Note: IL CASO DELL ANIMA Edit

In saying that some such person still exists, we mean, I suggest, that the sleeping body will again by normal processes give rise to a conscious life,Read more at location 2378

Note: IL PROCESSO NORMALE DI CHI DORME: SVEGLIARSI. ASSENZA DI INTERFERENZE Edit

although persons only exist while they are conscious, the bodies which they previously owned continue to exist during the periods of unconsciousnessRead more at location 2380

Add a note

that would be a very unnatural way to talk, largely because it has the consequence that certain substances (persons) are continually popping in and out of existence.Read more at location 2381

Note: DENTRO E FUORI DALL ESISTENZA Edit

it seems a less cumbersome way to describe the cited fact to say that persons exist while not conscious,Read more at location 2383

Note: PIÙ SEMPLICE Edit

This will have the consequence that persons normally have only one beginning of existence during their life on Earth. Read more at location 2384

Add a note

With this usage, a soul exists while its owner exists; and a soul will normally have only one beginning of existence during a man's life on Earth.Read more at location 2390

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But the boundaries of this usage are not as clear as they look. It all depends on what we understand by 'normal' bodily processesRead more at location 2391

Note: I CONFINI DELL ESISTENZA Edit

If a drowned body of a person can be revived by artificial respiration, that person certainly exists before the respiration is given.Read more at location 2392

Note: RESPIRAZIONE ARTIFICIALE Edit

But what about the man in a coma for reviving whom there are no techniques available to doctors at that place and time, though there will be such techniques usable a few years later?Read more at location 2393

Note: COMA IRREVERSIBILE Edit

If he recovers, have 'normal processes' made his soul function again'?Read more at location 2395

Note: L ANIMA DEI COMATOSI Edit

we must, I think, develop the account which I have given so far by giving fairly arbitrary stipulative definitions of 'normal' bodily processes and 'available' techniques.Read more at location 2399

Note: NORMALE PROCESSO CORPOREO Edit

If our talk of persons existing is not to depart too wildly from ordinary usage, we must deny that it is sufficient for the existence of a man merely that it is logically possible that he be brought to life again; for in that case all dead men would continue to exist (as a mere logical consequence of once having existed).Read more at location 2400

Note: LA POSSIBILITÀ LOGICA Edit

I suggest that we understand in this context by a bodily process being 'normal', that it will yield its outcome with a high degree of predictability given normal nutrition, respiration, etc.,Read more at location 2403

Note: NORMALE: ALTAMENTE PROBABILE Edit

and by a technique being 'available', that it is available to doctors during that period of history within a region of the size of the average county.Read more at location 2404

Note: TECNICA DISPONIBILE Edit

My preferred definition does allow that it sometimes happens that a person (and so his soul) ceases to exist and then by an unexpected accident comes to exist again.Read more at location 2408

Note: REVENANTS Edit

So, given that the soul functions first about twenty weeks after conception, when does it come into existence? There exist normal bodily processes by which the fertilized egg develops into a foetus with a brain after twenty weeks which gives rise to a functioning soul. If the soul exists just because normal bodily processes will bring it one day to function, it surely therefore exists, once the egg is fertilized, at conception.'Read more at location 2411

Note: EMBRIONE DI 20 SETTIMANE Edit

Once again it seems an arbitrary matter when we say that the soul begins to exist, requiring a further stipulation as to how 'normal bodily processes' are to he understood.Read more at location 2415

Add a note

Animal Souls Read more at location 2418

Note: TITOLO. ANIMALI Edit

the grounds for attributing a mental life of sensation, thought, purpose, desire, and belief to other men are provided by the pattern of their public behaviour, including above all what they say.Read more at location 2418

Note: ANIMA E COMPORTAMENTO PUBBLICO Edit

There are, as we noted there, similar grounds for attributing a mental life characterized by these elements to the higher animals, especially mammals.Read more at location 2419

Add a note

animals sometimes show the facial signs which humans show when struck by thought;Read more at location 2429

Add a note

But of course the most obvious difference between the higher animals and ourselves is that they do not have a structured language;Read more at location 2432

Note: IL LINGUAGGIO Edit

this means that any conclusions we reach about their mental lives must he much more tentative than any conclusions we may reach about the mental lives of other men. Read more at location 2435

Note: TENTATIVE Edit

An organism can have sensations without having mental events of other kinds; and my suspicion is that the conscious life of the first conscious animals was purely sensory,Read more at location 2439

Note: SENSAZIONI. ANIMA SENSITIVA Edit

Since, as I shall argue, creatures without language cannot have moral concepts, desire alone must move such creatures to action.Read more at location 2443

Note: LINGUAGGIO ED ETICA Edit

beliefs must have been present in all purposing animals. Sooner or later animals must have formulated their beliefs to themselves in thought.Read more at location 2445

Note: CREDENZA Edit

Now the claim which I made in Chapter 8 about the need to describe humans as composed of body and soul applies to conscious animals as well.Read more at location 2451

Note: DUALISMO VERSO GLI ANIMALI Edit

If you divide my cat's brain and transplant the two halves into empty cat skulls and the transplants take, there is a truth about which subsequent cat is my cat which is not necessarily revealed by knowledge of what has happened to the parts of my cat's body. Read more at location 2453

Note: TRAPIANTI AI GATTI Edit

Talk about animal souls as well as human souls was normal in Greek philosophy and Christian medieval thought.Read more at location 2455

Note: GRECIA E MEDIOEVO Edit

The idea of a very sharp division between animals who had no souls, and men who had souls, arrived in the seventeenth century with Descartes and his strange view that animals were unconscious automata.Read more at location 2456

Note: CARTESIO E L ANIMALE ROBOT Edit

The difference between animals and men, as the medievals well recognised, was not that men had a mental life and so souls, and animals did not; but that man had a special kind of mental life (mental capacities which went beyond those of animals) and so a special kind of soul. The medievals called this soul the rational or intellectual soul, as opposed to the animal or sensitive soul.' Read more at location 2457

Note: ANIMA RAZIONALE E SENSITIVA Edit

Scientific Explanation of Animal Evolution Read more at location 2459

Note: TITOLO: EVOLUZIONE DELL ANIMA Edit

How far can science explain the evolution of these forms of consciousness'? Read more at location 2462

Note: SCIENZA E COSCIENZA Edit

Most writers who discuss the relation of mind and body and consider the possibility of scientific explanation in this field normally make an assumption of one-many simultaneous mind-brain correlation.Read more at location 2462

Note: LA CORRELAZIONE MENTE CERVELLO Edit

the assumption of one-many correlation is an assumption for which no one has ever produced any detailed evidence.Read more at location 2468

Note: EVIDENZA Edit

The assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation would follow from the assumptions that every event has a cause, and that all mental events are caused exclusively and instantaneously by brain-events.Read more at location 2468

Note: ASSUNTO DELLA CAUSA MATERIALE Edit

I shall make the assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation for humans, animals, and any other conscious beings there may be; and show that even with it, central theses of mine about the structure and causal efficacy, and yet ultimate inexplicability, of the soul still follow.Read more at location 2470

Note: LA COSCIENZA RESTA CMQ INSPIEGATA DALLA SCIENZA Edit

Why did no organisms develop with four wheels made of skin and bone, or organisms which eat coal, or organisms with built-in catapults to fire stones?Read more at location 2487

Note: UNA CRITICA ALL EVOLUZIONISMO Edit

explanation of why we have the animals we do lies not in natural selection but in the chemical properties of genetic material which make it more prone to throw up certain variants than others. The major task of explaining why organisms have the physical characteristics they do lies no longer with the theorist of natural selection but with the biochemist. Read more at location 2492

Note: CASO O BIOCHIMICA? IL MISTERO DELLA MUTAZIONE Edit

what physics and chemistry could not possibly explain is why the brain-events to which the impinging light gives rise, in turn give rise to sensations of blueness (as opposed to redness), a high noise rather than a low noise, this sort of smell rather than that sort of smell-why sodium chloride tastes salty, and roses look pink. And the reason why physics and chemistry could not explain these things is that pink looks, high noises, and salty tastes are not the sort of thing physics and chemistry deal in.Read more at location 2498

Note: COSA NN SPIEGHERÀ MAI LO SCIENTISMO Edit

mental properties are different properties from physical properties; and even if there is one-many correlation between mental events and brain-events, physics and chemistry cannot explain why there are these correlations rather than those correlations,Read more at location 2501

Add a note

But could not physics and chemistry be enlarged so as to become a super-science dealing with both physical and mental properties,Read more at location 2503

Note: UNA NUOVA FISICA? Edit

I do not think so, for the following reason.Read more at location 2504

Add a note

You explain why the planet today is in this position by stating where it and other heavenly bodies were last month (the initial conditions) and how it follows from Newton's laws of motionRead more at location 2505

Note: LA SPIEGA SCIENTIFICA Edit

To provide a scientific explanation you need laws of nature.Read more at location 2507

Note: LEGGE DI NATURA Edit

we need to show not merely that the generalization holds universally, but that it fits neatly into a scientific theory which is a simple theory with few simple purported laws,Read more at location 2514

Add a note

The theory with four such simple laws was able to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of bodies of very different kinds in very different circumstances-theRead more at location 2521

Note: GRAVITÀ Edit

Now a scientist, I have assumed, could compile a very, very long list of the correlations between brain-events and sensations,Read more at location 2525

Note: IL CATALOGO DELLE CORRELAZIONI Edit

But to explain those correlations we need by our principles to establish a much smaller set of purported laws, from which it follows that this kind of brain-event has to be correlated with a red sensation, that one with a blue sensation;Read more at location 2530

Note: CATALOGO E NN PRINCIPI Edit

The purported laws would need to fit together into a theory from which we could derive new correlations (e.g. predict some totally new sensation to which some hitherto unexemplified brain-state would give rise).Read more at location 2532

Note: PREDIZIONE DI NUOVE CORRELAZIONI? Edit

Because you have no explanation of why all ravens are black, you may reasonably suspect that tomorrow someone will find a white raven.Read more at location 2536

Note: SPIEGARE I CORVI NERI Edit

The list of correlations is like a list of sentences of a foreign language which under certain circumstances translate sentencesRead more at location 2537

Note: IMPARARE UNA LINGUA. LISTA E REGOLE Edit

In the absence of a grammar and dictionary you do not know when those translations will cease to be accurateRead more at location 2538

Add a note

But why should not the scientist devise a theory showing the kinds of correlation discussed to be natural ones'?Read more at location 2540

Note: AVREMO MAI UNA GRAMMATICA? Edit

Although it is theoretically possible that a scientific theory of this kind should be created, still the creation of such a theory does not look a very likely prospect.Read more at location 2541

Note: POSSIBILE MA IMPROBABILE. FINE DEL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit

Brain-events are such different things qualitatively from pains, smells, and tastesRead more at location 2542

Note: DIFFERENZA CHE APPARE QUALITATIVA Edit

There is a crucial difference between the two cases. All other integrations into a super-science, of sciences dealing with entities and properties apparently qualitatively very distinct, were achieved by saying that really some of those entities and properties were not as they appeared to be; by making a distinction between the underlying (not immediately observable) entities and properties and the phenomenal properties to which they gave rise.Read more at location 2553

Note: DIFFERENZE CON LE GRANDI INTEGRAZIONI DEL PASSATO. Edit

All `reduction' of one science to another dealing with apparently very disparate properties has been achieved by this device of denying that the apparent properties (i.e. the `secondary qualities' of colour, heat, sound, taste, etc.) with which one science dealt belonged to the physical world at all.Read more at location 2559

Note: RIDUZIONE DEL CALDO DEL SUONO... A FENOMENI MOLECOLARI. PER LA COSCIENZA SI NEGHEREBBE IL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit

But then, when you come to face the problem of the sensations themselves, you cannot do this. If you are to explain the sensations themselves, you cannot distinguish between them and their underlying causes and only explain the latter.Read more at location 2561

Note: IL PROBLEMA: SE DEVI SPIEGARE LE SENSAZIONI NN PUOI NEGARE CHE SIANO SENSAZIONI X RIDURLE A MOLECOLE Edit

can natural selection explain why animals with the capacity to have sensations survived? What evolutionary advantage does the capacity to have sensations give to a creature?Read more at location 2566

Note: PERCHÈ AVERE SENSAZIONI DOVREBBE ESSERE UN VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO? NON BASTA UN AUTOMA? Edit

If epiphenomenalism were true, there would be no evolutionary advantage in having sensations.Read more at location 2567

Note: DARWIN NN SPIEGA GLI EPIFENOMENI Edit

having of sensations would never make any difference to the animal's behaviour.Read more at location 2568

Add a note

this system of ours in which sensations are causally intermediate between stimulus and response will clearly have no evolutionary advantage over a mechanism which produces the same behavioural modifications without going through sensations to produce them.Read more at location 2570

Note: SENSAZIONE: UN INTERMEDIARIO INUTILE. RAGIONE AGLI ELIMINATIVISTI Edit

What advantage is there in the mental awareness as opposed to the unconscious disposition'?Read more at location 2585

Note: LA COSCIENZA NN DÀ VANTAGGI EVOLUTIVI QUINDI DARWIN NN SPIEGA LA SUA ESISTENZA Edit

So we have noted one crucial all-important question which is utterly beyond the powers of Darwinism or apparently science itself to answer-why do certain brain-events give rise to certain mental events-and one question on which there are possibilities for a Darwinian answer.Read more at location 2589

Note: OLTRE DARWIN Edit

Why is the brain connected via the optic nerve to the eye in such a way that the brain-event which gives rise to the belief that there is a table present is normally caused to occur when and only when there is a table present? The answer is evident-animals with beliefs are more likely to survive if their beliefs are largely true.Read more at location 2593

Note: IL VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO DELLA VERITÀ Edit

Many animals have a built-in mechanism for correcting in the light of experience any tendency to acquire false beliefsRead more at location 2598

Add a note

So then, in summary, the evolution of the mental life of animalsRead more at location 2603

Note: SOMMARIO Edit

is a matter of (1) there existing certain physical/mental connectionsRead more at location 2604

Add a note

(2) animals with brains, whose states are connected to mental states, having survival value; (3) evolution selecting animals whose brains are `wired in' to their bodies in certain ways.Read more at location 2604

Add a note

Darwinian mechanisms can explain quite a lot of (3), and possibly some of (2); but neither Darwinism nor any other science has much prospect of explaining (1).Read more at location 2605

Add a note

The gradual evolution of the animal soul is a mystery, likely ever to lie beyond the capacity of science to explain.Read more at location 2609

Note: CONCLUSIONE Edit

We have good reason to suppose that they do have souls which operate under certain physical conditions,Read more at location 2615

Note: ALTERNATIVA Edit

There may be some natural law concerning when and how soul and body interact, but my argument suggests that there is not (because our present evidence would count against any suggested law) and in consequence scientists are unlikely to find one.Read more at location 2616

Note: ASSENZA DI LEGGI. LIBERTÀ DELL UOMO Edit

some brain keeps some soul functioning; but, lacking a theory of how this happens, we do not know how much of that brain is needed for that soulRead more at location 2623

Note: QUANTO CERVELLO CI SERVE? Edit

Martians, Robots, and Synthesized Animals Read more at location 2626

Note: TITOLO. MARZIANI E ROBOT Edit

what of organisms who might be found on other planets, made of very different kinds of molecule from animals on this planet (let us call them `Martians'); and what of organisms which are brought into being, not by normal sexual processes, but are put together in a laboratory on this Earth, made either of similar molecules and similar construction to animals (let us call them `synthesized animals') or of very different molecules and construction (let us call them `robots')?Read more at location 2627

Add a note

The difference of construction of robots and Martians from ourselves, means that we no longer have the crucial grounds for attributing consciousnessRead more at location 2630

Note: DIFFIDENZA Edit

If they have a mental life like ours, we must obviously treat them differently from the way in which we treat machines.Read more at location 2639

Add a note

synthesized animals, having considerable similarity of brain to ourselves, are justifiably believed to have souls. There is no reason to suppose that souls will come into existence only through the normal sexual processes.Read more at location 2643

Note: EMULATORI

Why Is Democracy Tolerable? Evidence from Affluence and Influence Bryan Caplan

Why Is Democracy Tolerable? Evidence from Affluence and Influence Bryan Caplan

• The median American is no Nazi, but he is a moderate national socialist 
•  I discuss several mechanisms that might explain why, given public opinion, democracies' policies are better than you'd expect.  But I was simply unaware of the facts presented in Martin Gilens' new Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America... Democracy has a strong tendency to simply supply the policies favored by the rich.To avoid misinterpretation, this does not mean that American democracy has a strong tendency to supply the policies that most materially benefit the rich
• On distributional issues, there is high consensus.  But the rich are noticeably less statist on both economic and social policy.  Rich and poor alike favor raising the minimum wage, but the support of the poor is nearly unanimous.  The poor are slightly more in favor of extending unemployment benefits.  They're much more anti-gay.  They're much less opposed to restricting free speech to fight terrorism.  The list goes on.
• In contrast, I find Gilens' results not only intellectually satisfying, but hopeful.  If his results hold up, we know another important reason why policy is less statist than expected: Democracies listen to the relatively libertarian rich far more than they listen to the absolutely statist non-rich. 

continua

When 'Theologians' Criticize 'Mathematical Economists' - By kevin vallier

When 'Theologians' Criticize 'Mathematical Economists' - By kevin vallier

• Accusa. Economists who rationalise their discipline’s value can be convincing...
• ‘rational’, a word that confuses truth with mathematical reasoning....Yet when mathematical theory is the ultimate arbiter of truth, it becomes difficult to see the difference between science and pseudoscience.... There is no longer any excuse for making the same mistake with economic theory....It’s time to stop wasting our money and recognise the high priests for what they really are: gifted social scientists who excel at producing mathematical explanations of economies, but who fail, like astrologers before them,
• Levinovitz refers smoothly to 'economists' without distinguishing the many varieties of economists and economics;
• he talks of 'mathematical theory,' 'mathiness,' and 'mathematical reasoning' without distinguishing the many different kinds of mathematical theories
• and he talks of 'performance' without bothering to explore the particular ends that different kinds of economists set for their particular theories and models. And he conflates different kinds of non-performance: for example, within a single paragraph, he moves from (a) failed predictions of interest rate movements, (b) to failures to foresee economic crises,
• shortly--these are both failures of "prophecy," they need not involve failures of explanation or understanding (or abuses of mathematics).
• Levinovitz re-activates a familiar Meme: the hyper-mathematization of economics (recall this piece in the New York Times by Tyler Curtain and Alex Rosenberg; also recall my response). The modern version of the Meme goes back to Boulding's response to Samuelson Foundations [recall my treatment]... But by now the Meme gets recycled without distinctions that may make the conversation illuminating.
• there is a huge difference among (d) so-called, ‘Technical analysts at big banks... trying to find patterns," in stock-market movements, which is thoroughly discredited by professional economics (already since the 1960s), and, say, (e) portfolio allocation models, (f) rational pricing techniques (like Black-Scholes), and (g) bankers' risk-models (even though some of the same underlying principles are used in e-g).
• For example, I have studied the failure to forecast the economic crisis of 2009 by the Dutch planning agency. And the explanation for it is fairly simple: they did not (and perhaps could not) foresee the collapse in world trade (as a consequence of a liquidity crisis post Lehman).... To solve this problem, they do not need to abolish the use of mathematics, but they need to get much more creative in having access to relevant trade-data in real time.
• Levinovitz's underlying point that 'mathematics' is excessive status enhancing is a familiar one. For, as I have noted, Mandeville already made the point about the social, non-epistemic role of mathematics in eighteenth century medicine... the utility of math in eighteenth century medicine is a signaling device that makes mathematical medical doctors more attractive
• the use of mathematics (now quoting Levinovitz) "creates a high barrier to entry for those who want to participate in the professional dialogue."
• But it is by no means obvious why the use of mathematics "makes checking someone’s work excessively laborious.".....lack of incentives to check each other's results and publish dis-confirmations
• Levinovitz's point. He claims that that economists have become modern high priests, which because they do so bad at predicting future events," fail at prophecy." Surely, I cannot object to his position? But I do because it also misunderstands the nature of prophecy. Prophecy is not prediction (recall this post). Here's an argument from authority... social prophecy is only tangentially related to prediction.
• Hobbes notes, the Hebrew Bible recognizes false prophets are also capable of accurate prediction-- Balaam is the exemplar in this category.

continua

School Is To SubmitBy Robin Hanson

School Is To Submit By Robin Hanson

• Most animals in the world can’t be usefully domesticated. This isn’t because we can’t eat their meat, or feed them the food they need
• How did the industrial era get at least some workers to accept more domination, inequality, and ambiguity, and why hasn’t that worked equally well everywhere? A simple answer I want to explore in this post is: prestigious schools.
• While human foragers are especially averse to even a hint of domination, humans are especially eager to take “orders” via copying the practices of prestigious folks. Humans have a uniquely powerful capacity for cultural evolution exactly because we are especially eager and able to copy what prestigious people do. So if humans hate industrial workplace practices when they see them as bosses dominating, but love to copy the practices of prestigious folks, an obvious solution is to habituate kids into workplace practices in contexts that look more like the later than the former. -
• centuries ago most young people did signal their abilities via jobs, and the school signaling system has slowly displaced that job signaling system. Pressures to conform to existing practices can’t explain this displacement of a previous practice by a new practice. So why did signaling via school did win out over signaling via early jobs?
• Like early jobs, school can have people practice habits that will be useful in jobs, such as showing up on time, doing what you are told even when that is different from what you did before, figuring out ambiguous instructions, and accepting being frequently and publicly ranked relative to similar people. But while early jobs threaten to trip the triggers than make most animals run from domination, schools try to frame a similar habit practice in more acceptable terms, as more like copying prestigious people. -

continua

Economia sperimentale

This is a review of the literature of field experimental studies of markets. The main results covered by the review are as follows: (1) Generally speaking, markets organize the efficient exchange of commodities; (2) There are some behavioral anomalies that impede efficient exchange; (3) Many behavioral anomalies disappear when traders are experienced.