Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

I’m kidding about the title of this post. Mostly. This month’s Scientific American: Mind* has a fascinating article by Catherine Caldwell-Harris about moral reasoning in a native language versus a second or foreign language. You need a subscription to read the whole thing, but fortunately for those without a subscription this article seems like a re-hash of one she wrote for the broader Scientific American magazine.

The gist of the article is that people’s moral reasoning may be more “logical” when they think about moral issues like the “The Trolley Problem” in a language other than their native language. It would be a bit redundant to summarize all of the detail here since the article linked to above is not terribly long, so check it out and come back.

At this point, I should probably mention why the title of this post is a bit of an oversimplification. Whether or not more logical moral reasoning is better in all cases is subject to question. There is research that demonstrates that our emotional reasoning sometimes serves us quite well as it did for our ancestors for thousands of years. Probably the best popular level book that I’ve read on the topic is Gerd Gigerenzer’s Gut Feelings, though Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind also covers a bit of this ground (I talk a little more about this book in a post about serendipity).

Beyond that, and somewhat as an aside, recently some philosophers have questioned research on moral reasoning based on thought experiments like “The Trolley Problem.” Admittedly, I’ve only read about it second-hand; however, some aspects of it have always struck me as a little odd. For example, in one version, people are asked if it is morally permissible to push a very large man onto a set of trolley tracks in order to save five other people. The problem for me here is that I’m no small man myself and might could jump on the tracks, which complicates matters.

Those two caveats notwithstanding, I do think the article linked to above is saying some very interesting things. The idea that a second language may not be as closely tied to the emotional circuits of the brain is intriguing. For example, there are a lot of people that say when you learn a foreign language you need to be able to “think in that language.” This research may suggest that it is impossible to think in a second or foreign language in the same way a native speaker does. So, the implications could be relatively far reaching.

Bonus: Okay I promised someone a potential disseration topic and here it is. I distinctly remember being struck strongly, perhaps for the first time, by the moral issues surrounding the conquest of Canaan and the killing of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua when reading the text in Hebrew. So, here’s an avenue of potential research making use of the research paradigm followed in the article above and that I would love to see (but probably would never have time to do on my own unless someone wants to write me a big grant check) – have people read texts about herem in the Hebrew Bible, some in their native language as a control and some in a foreign language (it might be more interesting to have a variety of foreign languages not just Hebrew), and then develop a way to engage their moral reasoning about the passages and see what the results are. That dissertation would almost write itself. Just please mention me in the acknowledgements.

* I have a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and like to keep up with the most recent developments, so I subscribe to Scientific American: Mind, Psychology Today, and Mind World. Scientific American: Mind is by far the best. I think I get a jolt of dopamine every time it arrives in the mail.

In his wonderful little book Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, Umberto Eco explores the power of false ideas. In the preface of the book he states concerning the first essay of the collection:

The polemical title is “The Force of Falsity,” and in the lecture I wanted to show how a number of ideas that today we consider false actually changed the world (sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse) and how, in the best instances, false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or at least something we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity. An excellent example of it is given us by Columbus, who – believing he could reach the Indies by sailing westward – actually discovered America, which he had not intended to discover.

He provides the example of Columbus, but for those familiar with the history of science other examples abound. Consider that chemistry grew out of alchemy.

For those familiar with Eco’s fiction, this idea may sound familiar because it is a theme that he explores in The Name of the Rose, a bestseller written about fifteen years before Serendipities. If you are a fan of mystery novels and have not read it, I highly recommend you do so.  But, at the risk of one small spoiler one of the main characters arrives at the solution of a mystery by following a completely false pattern (I think that is sufficiently vague).

After reading Serendipities and The Name of the Rose, I have been struck by the concept of serendipity all around.  Two other places I have noticed serendipity recently have been in a re-reading of Michael Ruse’s Can a Darwinian be a Christian? and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. In both of these books, an atheist examines his own views to some extent in light of religious belief (which they believe to be false, not I).

Ruse refers to himself as someone who “has probably no more religious belief than Richard Dawkins.” However, in Can a Darwinian be a Christian?, we find many statements such as the following:

If there is any unifying conclusion to this book it is that while the comparison of Darwinism and Christianity may be challenging and difficult, it is also stimulating and fruitful.

In other words, examining how a theological system, which he rejects entirely, could be reconciled with Darwinism is “stimulating and fruitful.”  Would to God that we could all (my own Christian community included) be as even-minded as Michael Ruse!

InThe Righteous Mind, Haidt offers some of the most genuine self-critique of modern atheism that I have come across. He summarizes some of the information that you would find in the book in this article.  But this conclusion is revealing:

If all religious people lost their faith overnight and abandoned their congregations, I think the net results would probably be bad, at least in America where (in contrast to European nations) our enormous size, short history, great diversity, and high mobility make it harder for us to overcome individualism and feel that we are all part of one community.

Consider “the net result would probably be bad” in contrast to Hitchens’ “how religion poisons everything.” Haidt’s article elicits also a fairly balanced statement from Michael Shermer who conceded higher levels of charitability among religious believers, but also notes research which suggests that societies with higher levels of religiosity have more problems related to societal health (responses are below the article).

So, why don’t more of us take advantage of serendipity and harness the power of (whatever we may believe to be) false ideas for clarifying our own thinking and opening up new avenues for thought? For one, it takes suspending judgment, whereas we often approach the work of someone with whom we disagree with an eye first to showing how they are wrong (i.e., we approach with our confirmation bias). Yet, what we need is, in the words of Mortimer J. Adler, is to be able state the arguments of those with whom we disagree in their own words.  This is something that Ruse does in his book as he demonstrates a perfectly adequate understanding of Christian theology.  Perhaps if we can follow his example, as well as perhaps the example of the fictional sleuth in the Eco’s The Name of the Rose (I still won’t tell you which one), we will all be the better for it.

I have formally studied both psychology and biblical studies, which has entailed somewhat the study of religion in general. Over the last several days I’ve seen a considerable amount of discussion of suicide related to both psychology and religion, some of which has been heplful and some not with some of the unhelpful discussion being much worse than others. There’s been so much written that rather than address particular posts that I’ve seen, I’ll just give my perspective concerning psychology and the sociology of religion.

My main point here is: There are currently no explanations of suicide, only to some degree an understanding of the factors that would lead a person to commit suicide.

First, biology. Thomas Szasz to the contrary, I think most behavioral scientists recognize that there is a biological component to mental illness, and thus to depression, and thus to suicide. For one, suicide is a cultural universal. In other words, there are no places in the world (at least to my knowledge) where people do not commit suicide. Cultural universality is often taken as a sign that a particular behavior may have a biological basis. Further, some pharmacological treatments do seem to help with depression. I don’t think this is completely well-understood at the present time, but still another sign that there is probably a biological component to depression.

That said, there are things that biology cannot explain. Biology cannot explain cultural variation; for example, why suicide rates are lower in Canada or India than in the United States. Biology also cannot explain everything in the case of individuals because most people who are diagnosed with depression do not commit suicide. Many limitations of biological explanations of human behavior can be found in works on sociology. On the flip side, sociology has the more difficult time explaining culutural universality, etc.

The take away from the last two paragraphs is: there are both biological and social factors related to depression and suicide, so neither can offer a complete explanation.

Second, religion. Contrary to much of the ignorance circulating on the internet right now, there has been actual research done related to religious affiliation and suicide. What does some of this data show? Those who hold no religious affiliation are most likely to commit suicide, followed by buddhists, followed by Christians, followed by Hindus and with Muslims coming in with the lowest suicide rate. First and foremost, I should note that these are statistical correlations not causations and cannot take into account matters such as individual religiosity. So, I will only address Christians because that is the group to which I belong and from which I have seen the greatest amount of ignorance. If suicide is related to a deficiency in a person’s faith, would you also argue that Christian should convert to Islam because they have the lowest suicide rate?

Further, if it is strictly a faith issue, it is difficult to explain why more secular societies than the United States may have lower suicide rates. It is also difficult to explain why pharmacological treatments sometimes work.

The take away here is this: there may be some relationship between religious affiliation and suicide, but it may just be a correlation and religious factors couldn’t possibly offer a complete explanation anyway based on what we know about biology and sociology.

In light of the complexity of the issues of depression and suicide, we should all speak with large dose of humility and not pretend as though we have the explanation.  Rather, we can only talk about and do what we can about factors.  When we talk about suicide we’re talking not only about a celebrity, but also about the loved ones that many of those around us have lost. Rather, now is a time in the words St. Paul to “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15).

Would you push it?

I might a lot of days. I say that as someone who has posted my fair share. I still laugh at quite a few. But, some days it’s a lot like hearing nothing but knock-knock jokes over and over again.

Steven Pinker offered some words about one-liners in How the Mind Works that seem almost eerie that he wrote them before social media in light of modern meme posting:

But oddly enough, humor is also a prized tactic of rhetoric and intellectual argument. Wit can be a fearsome rapier in the hands of a skilled polemicist. Ronald Reagan’s popularity and effectiveness as president owed much to his facility with one-liners that quashed debate and criticism, at least for the moment; for example, when deflecting questions about abortion rights he would say, “I notice that everyone in favor of abortion has already been born.” Philosophers relish the true story of the theoretician who announced at a scholarly conference that while some languages use a double negative to convey an affirmative, no language uses a double affirmative to convey a negative. A philosopher standing at the back of the hall shouted in a singsong, “Yeah, yeah.” Though it may be true, as Voltaire wrote, that “a witty saying proves nothing,” Voltaire was famously not above using them himself. The perfect quip can give a speaker an instant victory, deserved or not, and leave opponents stammering. We often feel that a clever aphorism captures a truth that would require pages to defend in another way. (pg 549)

But, how long will we be able to say, especially in the context of more serious discussions, that the tactic is “prized”? Like one too many knock-knock jokes eventually the punch is lost from the outset.

This is not even to mention other potential problems that Pinker hints at when he says “tactic of rhetoric and intellectual argument” and “the perfect quip can give a speaker an instant victory, deserved or not.” As the medium shapes the message and memes become more ubiquitous does it become harder and harder for us as individuals to weed through the rhetoric of one-liners and determine whether an intellectual argument is valid or not?

At any rate, by all means keep posting your memes if you’re so inclined.  I probably should just invest some time in getting better at filtering things and not whine on my blog about it. But facebook, if you’re listening, and we all know you are, a button that I could toggle off and on a couple days at a time would save me some effort …

At all.

I’m not even entirely certain how I got started reading about poststructuralism. I think I had just been doing a good bit of reading about structuralist linguistics for a while, and I kind of picked up a few books to see what the connections might be.

My experience: I start reading Foucault and I think – this is a really interesting thesis, but by the end I find myself thinking: how did we get here? I found Barthes’ Mythologies to be good for a few laughs, but after I read only so much of it, I felt like what maybe he was really shooting for was “the death of the reader” from the strain of trying to follow his connections.

As far as I can tell, much of my trouble with understanding poststructuralism stems from one of its major premises, which Catherine Belsey articulates as “meaning is difference.” As someone who has engaged in neostructuralist linguistics for the last several years I find the singling out of meaning as difference almost incomprehenisible.

Within more modern versions of structuralism that also trace themselves back to Saussure meaning is partly similarity (synonymy). It is partly taxonomic (hypernymy and hyponymy; holonymy and meronymy). Meaning can be partly derivative (as in the case of a noun also become a verb; e.g. “to google” something).

If we branch out into other approaches like Pustejovsky’s generative lexicon, capturing the creative aspect of meaning is important. In cognitive approaches, meaning is conceived of more as encyclopedic.

Why single out difference as an overarching theme? It seems a bit myopic.

So, maybe a good poststructuralist can help me here (partly sometimes I’d like to fancy myself the kind of scholar who has read, understood and appreciates Foucault). Or maybe I’m well behind the times and we’re post-poststructuralism now. Just don’t deconstruct this post because I may not understand you.

I recently came across Robert Epstein’s scathing review of Mark Turner’s new book The Origin of Ideas in the March/April edition of Scientific American: Mind. I thought some followers of this blog might interested in reading it as well if not for Epstein’s sheer capacity to turn a phrase. Epstein was a student of Skinner (literally), so it’s no surprise the review is negative, but to give some feeling of just how negative it is the review is titled “Cognitive Pseudoscience: The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark.” He ends with:

…

In fact, Turner violates just about every rule of good science: abstract concepts are treated as if they are real things; no aspects of the theory allow you to measure anything; it makes no specific predictions that can be tested; and so on. And then there’s the tautology: blending explains creativity, Turner says, but people “create blends.” See the problem?

Toward the end of the book, Turner finally gives up the farm, admitting that he is “skeptical” that experimental research on his blending model could ever be conducted. Reading The Origin of Ideas, in other words, is nothing like reading On the Origin of Species. It is more like reading Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams; its elegance and scope are reassuring until you realize you’ve been hoodwinked. At least Freudian theory had lots of sex.

You can read the whole review HERE.

This is a short review of the book Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H. M. by Suzanne Corkin.  The title of the post gives my one sentence summary for those familiar enough with books on psychology.

Permanent Present Tense has two primary characteristics that make it a worthwhile read. First, it presents a significant amount of cutting edge research on human memory, much of which was performed in Corkin’s lab at MIT. This presentation remains at the level of the lay person with a limited amount of technical language related to brain regions. It covers key distinctions in memory research, such as declarative memory (broken down further into episodic versus semantic) versus procedural memory and long-term memory versus short-term and working memory. It also covers key figures in the history of memory research such as Ebbinghaus and Bartlett, as well as at least part of the history of brain surgery for neurological disorders.

Second, the book presents this research in the form of a compelling narrative about one of psychology’s most famous subjects of all time, H.M. After his death in 2008, H.M. was publicly identified as Henry Molaison. “Henry” as he was known among those who worked with him experienced severe memory deficits after a surgical procedure intended to alleviate his frequent and debilitating epileptic seizures. While Corkin does attempt to maintain the stance of an objective observer the book is somewhat in the tradition of Oliver Sacks’ The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (a classic in the field of psychology that I also highly recommend). The reader leaves with a better understanding of human memory and the way in which experiments involving Henry have advanced that current understand; however, the author doesn’t allow the reader to lose sight of the fact that Henry was a human being who, along with his caregivers, experienced a tragedy difficult for many of us to imagine.

For those interested in human memory, but who might prefer something other than a textbook type treatment of the subject this book is definitely worthwhile. For those who read this blog who are interested primarily in language there are also lengthy sections of the book that deal with Henry’s language deficits as well. Permanent Present Tense both aids in understanding memory and at the same time inspires sympathy for the unfortunate people through whom we sometimes gain our understanding.

Well, God blessed the birds too folks 🙂 … Read your Bibles. I think Genesis chapter 1 is in the protestant Bible, right?:

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”  23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

If the Pope is crazy, then God is crazy. So, hush Jim and Cliff. And, thanks Joel.

I know I’m a little late getting around to it, but if anyone is interested in a bit more of the technical detail behind the Bible Sense Lexicon, which I worked on with Logos between the start of 2012 and the end of 2013, my two SBL papers related to the project are HERE and HERE.  The first of those links will take you to a paper that is more general background about the project that was presented in one of the lexicography sections, and the second will take you to one that is more focused on practical application for the analysis of metaphor that was presented in one of the metaphor theory sections.