Friday, February 04, 2011

Tooby

from edge: Nexus causality, moral warfare and misattribution arbitrage.

We could become far more intelligent than we are by adding to our stock of concepts, and by forcing ourselves to use them even when we don't like what they are telling us. This will be nearly always, because they generally tell us that our self-evidently superior selves and ingroups are error-besotted. We all start from radical ignorance in a world that is endlessly strange, vast, complex, intricate, and surprising. Deliverance from ignorance lies in good concepts — inference fountains that geyser out insights that organize and increase the scope of our understanding. We are drawn to them by the fascination of the discoveries they afford, but resist using them well and freely because they would reveal too many of our apparent achievements to be embarrassing or tragic failures. Those of us who are non-mythical lack the spine that Oedipus had — the obsidian resolve that drove him to piece together shattering realizations despite portents warning him off. Because of our weakness, "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle" as Orwell says. So why struggle? Better instead to have one's nose and what lies beyond shift out of focus — to make oneself hysterically blind as convenience dictates, rather than to risk ending up like Oedipus, literally blinding oneself in horror at the harvest of an exhausting, successful struggle to discover what is true.

Alternatively, even modest individual-level improvements in our conceptual toolkit can have transformative effects on our collective intelligence, promoting incandescent intellectual chain reactions among multitudes of interacting individuals. If this promise of intelligence-amplification through conceptual tools seems like hyperbole, consider that the least inspired modern engineer, equipped with the conceptual tools of calculus, can understand, plan and build things far beyond what da Vinci or the mathematics-revering Plato could have achieved without it. We owe a lot to the infinitesimal, Newton's counterintuitive conceptual hack — something greater than zero but less than any finite magnitude. Far simpler conceptual innovations than calculus have had even more far reaching effects — the experiment (a danger to authority), zero, entropy, Boyle's atom, mathematical proof, natural selection, randomness, particulate inheritance, Dalton's element, distribution, formal logic, culture, Shannon's definition of information, the quantum…

Here are three simple conceptual tools that might help us see in front of our noses: nexus causality, moral warfare, and misattribution arbitrage. Causality itself is an evolved conceptual tool that simplifies, schematizes, and focuses our representation of situations. This cognitive machinery guides us to think in terms of the cause — of an outcome having a single cause. Yet for enlarged understanding, it is more accurate to represent outcomes as caused by an intersection or nexus of factors (including the absence of precluding conditions). In War and Peace, Tolstoy asks "When an apple ripens and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stem withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it….?" — with little effort any modern scientist could extend Tolstoy's list endlessly. We evolved, however, as cognitively improvisational tool-users, dependent on identifying actions we could take that lead to immediate payoffs. So, our minds evolved to represent situations in a way that highlighted the element in the nexus that we could manipulate to bring about a favored outcome. Elements in the situation that remained stable and that we could not change (like gravity or human nature) were left out of our representation of causes. Similarly, variable factors in the nexus (like the wind blowing) that we could not control, but that predicted an outcome (the apple falling), were also useful to represent as causes, in order to prepare ourselves to exploit opportunities or avoid dangers. So the reality of the causal nexus is cognitively ignored in favor of the cartoon of single causes. While useful for a forager, this machinery impoverishes our scientific understanding, rendering discussions (whether elite, scientific, or public) of the "causes" — of cancer, war, violence, mental disorders, infidelity, unemployment, climate, poverty, and so on — ridiculous.

Similarly, as players of evolved social games, we are designed to represent others' behavior and associated outcomes as caused by free will (by intentions). That is, we evolved to view "man" as Aristotle put it, as "the originator of his own actions." Given an outcome we dislike, we ignore the nexus, and trace "the" causal chain back to a person. We typically represent the backward chain as ending in — and the outcome as originating in — the person. Locating the "cause" (blame) in one or more persons allows us to punitively motivate others to avoid causing outcomes we don't like (or to incentivize outcomes we do like). More despicably, if something happens that many regard as a bad outcome, this gives us the opportunity to sift through the causal nexus for the one thread that colorably leads back to our rivals (where the blame obviously lies). Lamentably, much of our species' moral psychology evolved for moral warfare, a ruthless zero-sum game. Offensive play typically involves recruiting others to disadvantage or eliminate our rivals by publically sourcing them as the cause of bad outcomes. Defensive play involves giving our rivals no ammunition to mobilize others against us.

The moral game of blame attribution is only one subtype of misattribution arbitrage. For example, epidemiologists estimate that it was not until 1905 that you were better off going to a physician. (Semelweiss noticed that doctors doubled the mortality rate of mothers at delivery). For thousands of years, the role of the physician pre-existed its rational function, so why were there physicians? Economists, forecasters, and professional portfolio managers typically do no better than chance, yet command immense salaries for their services. Food prices are driven up to starvation levels in underdeveloped countries, based on climate models that cannot successfully retrodict known climate history. Liability lawyers win huge sums for plaintiffs who get diseases at no higher rates than others not exposed to "the" supposed cause. What is going on? The complexity and noise permeating any real causal nexus generates a fog of uncertainty. Slight biases in causal attribution, or in blameworthiness (e.g., sins of commission are worse than sins of omission) allow a stable niche for extracting undeserved credit or targeting undeserved blame. If the patient recovers, it was due to my heroic efforts; if not, the underlying disease was too severe. If it weren't for my macroeconomic policy, the economy would be even worse. The abandonment of moral warfare, and a wider appreciation of nexus causality and misattribution arbitrage would help us all shed at least some of the destructive delusions that cost humanity so much.

temperament Dimensions Edge 2011

Helen Fisher

Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University; Author, Why We Love

Temperament Dimensions

"I am large, I contain multitudes" wrote Walt Whitman. I have never met two people who were alike. I am an identical twin, and even we are not alike. Every individual has a distinct personality, a different cluster of thoughts and feelings that color all their actions. But there are patterns to personality: people express different styles of thinking and behaving — what psychologists call "temperament dimensions." I offer this concept of temperament dimensions as a useful new member of our cognitive tool kit.

Personality is composed of two fundamentally different types of traits: those of "character;" and those of "temperament." Your character traits stem from your experiences. Your childhood games; your family's interests and values; how people in your community express love and hate; what relatives and friends regard as courteous or perilous; how those around you worship; what they sing; when they laugh; how they make a living and relax: innumerable cultural forces build your unique set of character traits. The balance of your personality is your temperament, all the biologically based tendencies that contribute to your consistent patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving. As Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset, put it, "I am, plus my circumstances." Temperament is the "I am," the foundation of who you are.

Some 40% to 60% of the observed variance in personality is due to traits of temperament. They are heritable, relatively stable across the life course, and linked to specific gene pathways and/or hormone or neurotransmitter systems. Moreover, our temperament traits congregate in constellations, each aggregation associated with one of four broad, interrelated yet distinct brain systems: those associated with dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen/oxytocin. Each constellation of temperament traits constitutes a distinct temperament dimension.

For example, specific alleles in the dopamine system have been linked with exploratory behavior, thrill, experience and adventure seeking, susceptibility to boredom and lack of inhibition. Enthusiasm has been coupled with variations in the dopamine system, as have lack of introspection, increased energy and motivation, physical and intellectual exploration, cognitive flexibility, curiosity, idea generation and verbal and non-linguistic creativity.

The suite of traits associated with the serotonin system includes sociability, lower levels of anxiety, higher scores on scales of extroversion, and lower scores on a scale of "No Close Friends," as well as positive mood, religiosity, conformity, orderliness, conscientiousness, concrete thinking, self-control, sustained attention, low novelty seeking, and figural and numeric creativity.

Heightened attention to detail, intensified focus, and narrow interests are some of the traits linked with prenatal testosterone expression. But testosterone activity is also associated with emotional containment, emotional flooding (particularly rage), social dominance and aggressiveness, less social sensitivity, and heightened spatial and mathematical acuity.

Last, the constellation of traits associated with the estrogen and related oxytocin system include verbal fluency and other language skills, empathy, nurturing, the drive to make social attachments and other prosocial aptitudes, contextual thinking, imagination, and mental flexibility.

We are each a different mix of these four broad temperament dimensions. But we do have distinct personalities People are malleable, of course; but we are not blank slates upon which the environment inscribes personality. A curious child tends to remain curious, although what he or she is curious about changes with maturity. Stubborn people remain obstinate; orderly people remain punctilious; and agreeable men and women tend to remain amenable.

We are capable of acting "out of character," but doing so is tiring. People are biologically inclined to think and act in specific patterns — temperament dimensions. But why would this concept of temperament dimensions be useful in our human cognitive tool kit? Because we are social creatures, and a deeper understanding of who we (and others) are can provide a valuable tool for understanding, pleasing, cajoling, reprimanding, rewarding and loving others — from friends and relatives to world leaders. It's also practical.

Take hiring. Those expressive of the novelty-seeking temperament dimension are unlikely to do their best in a job requiring rigid routines and schedules. Biologically cautious individuals are not likely to be comfortable in high-risk posts. Decisive, tough minded high testosterone types are not well suited to work with those who can't get to the point and decide quickly. And those predominantly of the compassionate, nurturing high estrogen temperament dimension are not likely to excel at occupations that require them to be ruthless.

Managers might form corporate boards containing all four broad types. Colleges might place freshman with roommates of a similar temperament, rather than similarity of background. Perhaps business teams, sports teams, political teams and teacher-student teams would operate more effectively if they were either more "like-minded" or more varied in their cognitive skills. And certainly we could communicate with our children, lovers, colleagues and friends more effectively. We are not puppets on a string of DNA. Those biologically susceptible to alcoholism, for example, often give up drinking. The more we come to understand our biology, the more we will appreciate how culture molds our biology.

Predictive Coding

From Edge.org

ANDY CLARK
Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist, University of Edinburgh. Author: Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Predictive Coding

The idea that the brain is basically an engine of prediction is one that will, I believe, turn out to be very valuable not just within its current home (computational cognitive neuroscience) but across the board: for the arts, for the humanities, and for our own personal understanding of what it is to be a human being in contact with the world.

The term 'predictive coding' is currently used in many ways, across a variety of disciplines. The usage I recommend for the Everyday Cognitive Toolkit is, however, more restricted in scope. It concerns the way the brain exploits prediction and anticipation in making sense of incoming signals and using them to guide perception, thought, and action. Used in this way 'predictive coding' names a technically rich body of computational and neuroscientific research (key theorists include Dana Ballard, Tobias Egner, Paul Fletcher, Karl Friston, David Mumford, and Rajesh Rao) . This corpus of research uses mathematical principles and models that explore in detail the ways that this form of coding might underlie perception, and inform belief, choice, and reasoning.

The basic idea is simple. It is that to perceive the world is to successfully predict our own sensory states. The brain uses stored knowledge about the structure of the world and the probabilities of one state or event following another to generate a prediction of what the current state is likely to be, given the previous one and this body of knowledge. Mismatches between the prediction and the received signal generate error signals that nuance the prediction or (in more extreme cases) drive learning and plasticity.

We may contrast this with older models in which perception is a 'bottom-up' process, in which incoming information is progressively built (via some kind of evidence accumulation process, starting with simple features and working up) into a high-level model of the world. According to the predictive coding alternative, the reverse is the case. For the most part, we determine the low-level features by applying a cascade of predictions that begin at the very top; with our most general expectations about the nature and state of the world providing constraints on our successively more detailed (fine grain) predictions.

This inversion has some quite profound implications.

First, the notion of good ('veridical') sensory contact with the world becomes a matter of applying the right expectations to the incoming signal. Subtract such expectations and the best we can hope for are prediction errors that elicit plasticity and learning. This means, in effect, that all perception is some form of 'expert perception', and that the idea of accessing some kind of unvarnished sensory truth is untenable (unless that merely names another kind of trained, expert perception!).

Second, the time course of perception becomes critical. Predictive coding models suggest that what emerges first is the general gist (including the general affective feel) of the scene, with the details becoming progressively filled in as the brain uses that larger context — time and task allowing — to generate finer and finer predictions of detail. There is a very real sense in which we properly perceive the forest before the trees.

Third, the line between perception and cognition becomes blurred. What we perceive (or think we perceive) is heavily determined by what we know, and what we know (or think we know) is constantly conditioned on what we perceive (or think we perceive). This turns out to offer a powerful window on various pathologies of thought and action, explaining the way hallucinations and false beliefs go hand-in-hand in schizophrenia, as well as other more familiar states such as 'confirmation bias' (our tendency to 'spot' confirming evidence more readily than disconfirming evidence).

Fourth, if we now consider that prediction errors can be suppressed not just by changing predictions but by changing the things predicted, we have a simple and powerful explanation for behavior and the way we manipulate and sample our environment. In this view, action is there to make predictions come true and provides a nice account of phenomena that range from homeostasis to the maintenance of our emotional and interpersonal status quo.

Understanding perception as prediction thus offers, it seems to me, a powerful tool for appreciating both the power and the potential pitfalls of our primary way of being in contact with the world. Our primary contact with the world, all this suggests, is via our expectations about what we are about to see or experience. The notion of predictive coding, by offering a concise and technically rich way of gesturing at this fact, provides a cognitive tool that will more than earn its keep in science, law, ethics, and the understanding of our own daily experience.
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