Cross-cultural reflections on the mirror self-recognition test

From The British Psychological Society:

The performance of young children on the 'mirror self-recognition test' varies hugely across cultures, a new study has shown. This is the test that involves surreptitiously putting a mark on a child's forehead and then seeing how they react when presented with their mirror image. Attempts by the child to touch or remove the mark are taken as a sign that he or she recognises themselves in the mirror. Studies in the West suggest that around half of all 18-month-olds pass the test, rising to 70 per cent by 24 months. Chimps, orangutans, dolphins and elephants have also been shown to pass the test, and there's recent debate over whether monkeys can too.

Inspired in part by past research conducted in Cameroon, in which children who failed the mirror test tended to be the most compliant and obedient, Broesch and her colleagues speculated that the performance in the non-Western, more interdependent cultures may have been affected by the fact that children in these societies are often discouraged from asking questions (they're expected to learn by watching). 'This is in sharp contrast with the independence and self-initiative that tends to be encouraged and nurtured in the Industrial West,' the researchers said. Another factor could be the non-Western children's relative lack of familiarity with mirrors.

Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion

From the Los Angeles Times:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

How becoming a Stoic can make you happy

Via boingboing.net:

The Stoics were interested in leading a life of "tranquility," meaning a life free of "anger, anxiety, fear, grief, and envy." To achieve such a life the Stoics developed, in the words of historian Paul Veyne, a "paradoxical recipe for happiness," that included the practice of "negative visualization." By frequently and vividly imagining worst-case scenarios -- the death of a child, financial catastrophe, ruined health -- the Stoics believed you would learn to appreciate what you have, and curb your insatiable appetite for more material goods, social status, and other objects of desire.

Reading the book, I had no trouble understanding how negative visualization could be an effective antidote against "hedonic adaptation." By imagining ourselves to be homeless, for instance, we can reset our desire for a more luxurious home and once again appreciate the roof over our head that we started taking for granted shortly after moving in.

God did not create the universe... for us

From Reuters:

In his latest book, he [Steven Hawking] said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.

The fact that God did not create the Earth "just to please us human begins" is not an argument against the existence of God.

God has his own life and he does not exist to please us. Rather, we exist to please him. He cannot be seen through eyes that seek to exploit and control him.

Flawed Reasoning is Incapable of Seeing Its Own Flaws

... phenomenon can be observed by anyone who cares to see it, those who have observed it have always laid blame for it on the limitations and the flaws of the systems, never on the limitations and the flaws of the human ability to think and to reason. For some un-reason, we feel that our ability to reason is limitless and infinitely perfectible. Nobody has voiced the idea that the exercise of our ability to think can reach the point of diminishing, then negative, returns. It is yet to be persuasively argued that the human propensity for abstract reasoning is a defect of breeding that leads to collective insanity. Perhaps the argument would have to be made recursively: The faculty in question is so flawed that it is incapable of seeing its own flaws.

Via Harmonist.

'think of the future as an open question'

From Scientific American:

[Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] measured the volunteers' intentions to start and stick to a fitness regimen. And in this real-world scenario, he got the same basic result: those primed with the interrogative phrase "Will I?" expressed a much greater commitment to exercise regularly than did those primed with the declarative phrase "I will."

...those with questioning minds were more intrinsically motivated to change. They were looking for a positive inspiration from within, rather than attempting to hold themselves to a rigid standard. Those asserting will lacked this internal inspiration, which explains in part their weak commitment to future change.

Happiness Project interview

Happiness Project interview: "Gretchen Rubin, author of the terrific book I reviewed in January, The Happiness Project, interviewed me on her always-interesting Happiness Project blog.

Gretchen: What's something you know now about happiness that you didn't know when you were 18 years old?

Mark: When I was 18 I thought that I had to go out and find things to make me happy. Now I am happiest when I don't venture past my property line. There is a world of adventure in my house and yard -- books, my family, drawing and painting, making yogurt, sauerkraut, and kombucha, beekeeping, raising chickens, making things. I still enjoy going out and seeing the rest of the world, but I also am at the point where I am never bored by staying home. Life gets more interesting as I grow older.