MOTION SICKNESS? WHY?

When I was a tyke, my folks used to drive every summer from Ohio to Connecticut so that my Stepmom could visit her family in Waterbury. Every summer, it seems, I’d get bored and try to read, which I enjoyed, while my Dad drove. And, of course, I always got sick. Why was this?

Two frames of reference that keep us oriented as we move through the environment are gravity which helps us know up from down and vision which tells us we’re walking through the world, passing things by.

Howsomever, when we are reading while traveling in a car, the inner ear, by gravity, by frontal pressure and less pressure to read, knows that we’re moving while the interior of the car and the page we read, say that we’re sitting still. This cognitive dissonance tells us that it’s time to be sick. (Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, p. 264)


A REASON TO DOUBT EVERYTHING

“Whatever God hath revealed is certainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is the proper object of faith. But whether it be a divine revelation or no, reason must be the judge.” —John Locke in 1689 C.E.


GETTING IT ON

From HOW THE MIND WORKS by Stephen Pinker:

“... intelligence is the pursuit of goals in the face of obstacles. Without goals, the very concept of intelligence is meaningless.” (p. 372)

“The emotions are mechanisms that set the brain’s highest level goals.” (p. 373) Yeah, man, getting laid. Look at the body on that little animal over there! Hubba! Hubba!

“Each human emotion mobilizes the mind and body to meet one of the challenges of living and reproducing in the cognitive niche.” (p. 374)

And the “... brain strives to put its owner in [emotional/physical] circumstances like those that caused its ancestors to reproduce.” (p. 373)


WHICH LEADS TO BAD GUYS

Pinker says that emotions are not very nice, but they are understandable. Yes, when my prick rises at sight of a shapely female, it means my emotions are telling me to run over and copulate with her. In polite society, we try to pretend this doesn’t happen. Or my rage can kill someone, and everyone shakes their heads at my act. The Columbine killers sure made a messy emotional mess too but we can understand why they did what they did. I shake my head over those who shake their heads when faced with the result of emotional outburst built up over time.

How many of us are willing to accept that animals will be animals? We all want animals to be people, but we aren’t. So we lie about things. But likable or not, Pinker says, “emotions are understandable”. “... the brain blithely weaves false explanations about its motives.” (HOW THE MIND WORKS, Pinker, p. 422) This is because we don’t like to think badly about ourselves; cognitive dissonance is triggered when our own good opinion of ourselves is threatened. Believe it or not, Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy in his own mind. “In real life villains are convinced of their rectitude.” (Pinker, p. 424)

Think, my friends, of George Bush and his excuses for the murder called war he’s got us into. I’ll bet he’s incapable of judging the cruelty of his own acts. If you wonder why some of us don’t trust him, just look into the science of those mentalities who believe they’re performing the work of a higher authority than themselves, convinced of their own rectitude, incapable of admitting to an error.

Accepting evolution as I do, I do understand the emotions behind the animals who are comforted by a man who’s animal nature comforts their animal instincts. Why do these people call themselves Christians? Why do they fail to understand the evolution at work in them?
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"The reason husbands and wives do not understand each other is because they belong to different sexes." —Dorothy Dix