Turns Out the Best Diet Is Real Food, Because Science!

Well, imagine that, the best diet for health is one that is based on eating real food, not crap that comes in a box, a bag, or a can. From The Atlantic.

Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner Is Real Food

Researchers asked if one diet could be crowned best in terms of health outcomes. If diet is a set of rigid principles, the answer is a decisive no. In terms of broader guidelines, it's a decisive yes.

James Hamblin | Mar 24 2014

Ornamental cabbage and kale in Langley, Washington (Dean Fosdick/AP)

Flailing in the swell of bestselling diet books, infomercials for cleanses, and secret tips in glossy magazines, is the credibility of nutrition science. Watching thoroughly-credentialed medical experts tout the addition or subtraction of one nutrient as deliverance—only to change the channel and hear someone equally-thoroughly-credentialed touting the opposite—it can be tempting to write off nutrition advice altogether. This month we hear something is good, and next we almost expect to hear it’s bad. Why not assume the latest research will all eventually be nullified, and just close our eyes and eat whatever tastes best?

That notion is at once relatable and tragic, in that diet is inextricable from the amount of healthy time we spend on Earth. Improvements in diet are clearly associated with significant lengthening of lifespan and dramatic decreases in risk of most chronic diseases. Combining disease and longevity into the concept of healthspan, the number of healthy years of life—fundamentally more important but less readily quantifiable than lifespan—the data in favor of optimizing our diets are even more compelling. No one is arguing that diet is less than extremely important to health and well-being, but seemingly everyone is arguing as to what constitutes the best diet.

The voices that carry the farthest over the sea of diet recommendations are those of iconoclasts—those who promise the most for the least, and do so with certainty. Amid the clamor, Dr. David Katz is emerging as an iconoclast on the side of reason. At least, that’s how he describes himself. From his throne at Yale University's Prevention Research Center, where he is a practicing physician and researcher, said sea of popular diet media is the institution against which he rebels. It’s not that nutrition science is corrupt, just that the empty promises of memetic, of-the-moment diet crazes are themselves junk food. To Katz they are more than annoying and confusing; they are dangerous injustice.

Scientific publisher Annual Reviews asked Katz to compare the medical evidence for and against every mainstream diet. He says they came to him because of his penchant for dispassionate appraisals. "I don't have a dog in the fight," he told me. “I don’t care which diet is best. I care about the truth."

Katz and Yale colleague Stephanie Meller published their findings in the current issue of the journal in a paper titled, "Can We Say What Diet Is Best for Health?" In it, they compare the major diets of the day: Low carb, low fat, low glycemic, Mediterranean, mixed/balanced (DASH), Paleolithic, vegan, and elements of other diets. Despite the pervasiveness of these diets in culture and media, Katz and Meller write, "There have been no rigorous, long-term studies comparing contenders for best diet laurels using methodology that precludes bias and confounding. For many reasons, such studies are unlikely." They conclude that no diet is clearly best, but there are common elements across eating patterns that are proven to be beneficial to health. "A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention."

 

 

Katz, Meller/Annual Reviews

Among the salient points of proven health benefits the researchers note, nutritionally-replete plant-based diets are supported by a wide array of favorable health outcomes, including fewer cancers and less heart disease. These diets ideally included not just fruits and vegetables, but whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Katz and Meller found "no decisive evidence" that low-fat diets are better than diets high in healthful fats, like the Mediterranean. Those fats include a lower ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids than the typical American diet.
The Mediterranean diet, which is additionally defined by high intake of fiber, moderate alcohol and meat intake, antioxidants, and polyphenols, does have favorable effects on heart disease, cancer risk, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and "is potentially associated with defense against neurodegenerative disease and preservation of cognitive function, reduced inflammation, and defense against asthma."
They also found carbohydrate-selective diets to be better than categorically low-carbohydrate diets, in that incorporating whole grains is associated with lower risks for cancers and better control of body weight. Attention to glycemic load and index is "sensible at the least." Eating foods that have high glycemic loads (which Katz says is much more relevant to health outcomes than glycemic index—in that some quality foods like carrots have very high indices, which could be misleading) is associated with greater risk of heart disease.
Finally, in a notable blow to some interpretations of the Paleo diet, Katz and Meller wrote, "if Paleolithic eating is loosely interpreted to mean a diet based mostly on meat, no meaningful interpretation of health effects is possible." They note that the composition of most meat in today's food supply is not similar to that of mammoth meat, and that most plants available during the Stone Age are today extinct. (Though it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Paleo extremists are crowd-funding a Jurassic Park style experiment to bring them back.)
Just because Katz is not one to abandon his scientific compass under duress of passion does not mean he is without passion, or unmoved by it in his own ways. The subjects of media headlines and popular diet books are dark places for Katz. "It’s not just linguistic, I really at times feel like crying, when I think about that we’re paying for ignorance with human lives," he told me. "At times, I hate the people with alphabet soup after their names who are promising the moon and the stars with certainty. I hate knowing that the next person is already rubbing his or her hands together with the next fad to make it on the bestseller list."
"The evidence that with knowledge already at our disposal, we could eliminate 80 percent of chronic disease is the basis for everything I do," Katz said. Just as he was finishing his residency in internal medicine in 1993, influential research in the Journal of the American Medical Association ("Actual Causes of Death in the United States") put diet on a short list of the lifestyle factors blamed for half of deaths in 1990. "Here we are more than 20 years later and we’ve made just about no progress."
A nod to the fact that popular media is not totally lost, Katz borrows from the writer Michael Pollan, citing a seminal 2007 New York Times Magazine article on "nutritionism" in concluding that the mantra, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" is sound. "That’s an excellent idea, and yet somehow it turns out to be extremely radical."
Though Katz also says it isn’t nearly enough. "That doesn't help you pick the most nutritious bread, or the best pasta sauce. A member of the foodie elite might say you shouldn't eat anything from a bag, box, bottle, jar, or can." That's admittedly impractical. "We do need to look at all the details that populate the space between where we are and where we want to be."
The current review is in pursuit of that, as is a system for determining the nutritional value of foods that Katz recently spent two years developing. It's called NuVal, and it offers consumers a single numeric value to determine foods' worth, as opposed to a complex nutritional panel. The number does things like differentiate intrinsic from added nutrients. "If you don’t do that, the best thing in the whole damn food supply is Total cereal. Total is basically a completely vapid flake delivery system for multivitamins. You could skip the cereal and take the multivitamin."
"If you eat food direct from nature," Katz added, "you don’t even need to think about this. You don't have to worry about trans fat or saturated fat or salt—most of our salt comes from processed food, not the salt shaker. If you focus on real food, nutrients tend to take care of themselves."
The ultimate point of this diet review, which is framed like a tournament, is that there is no winner. More than that, antagonistic talk in pursuit of marketing a certain diet, emphasizing mutual exclusivity—similar to arguments against bipartisan political rhetoric—is damaging to the entire system and conversation. Exaggerated emphasis on a single nutrient or food is inadvisable. The result, Katz and Meller write, is a mire of perpetual confusion and doubt. Public health could benefit on a grand scale from a unified front in health media: Endorsement of the basic theme of what we do know to be healthful eating and candid acknowledgement of the many details we do not know.
"I think Bertrand Russell nailed it," Katz told me, "when he said that the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so sure, and wise people always have doubts. Something like that."

RSA - From Self to Selfie: Simon Blackburn

Simon Blackburn is the author of Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love (March 2014). Here is the synopsis of the book from Amazon:

Everyone deplores narcissism, especially in others. The vain are by turns annoying or absurd, offending us whether they are blissfully oblivious or proudly aware of their behavior. But are narcissism and vanity really as bad as they seem? Can we avoid them even if we try? In Mirror, Mirror, Simon Blackburn, the author of such best-selling philosophy books as Think, Being Good, and Lust, says that narcissism, vanity, pride, and self-esteem are more complex than they first appear and have innumerable good and bad forms. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, literature, history, and popular culture, Blackburn offers an enlightening and entertaining exploration of self-love, from the myth of Narcissus and the Christian story of the Fall to today's self-esteem industry.

A sparkling mixture of learning, humor, and style, Mirror, Mirror examines what great thinkers have said about self-love--from Aristotle, Cicero, and Erasmus to Rousseau, Adam Smith, Kant, and Iris Murdoch. It considers today's "me"-related obsessions, such as the "selfie," plastic surgery, and cosmetic enhancements, and reflects on connected phenomena such as the fatal commodification of social life and the tragic overconfidence of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Ultimately, Mirror, Mirror shows why self-regard is a necessary and healthy part of life. But it also suggests that we have lost the ability to distinguish--let alone strike a balance--between good and bad forms of self-concern.

The video below is a highlight reel, so to speak, of his full talk at the RSA (there is a link to the podcast of the full talk with the Q and A that followed).

From Self to Selfie

13 Mar 2014


When "selfie" became the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year in 2013 many saw it as symptomatic of the triumph of the self-absorbed, individualistic "because-I'm-worth-it" generation. But is narcissism always to be deplored? Isn't a measure of self-regard a healthy necessity - and could we avoid it even if we tried?

Acclaimed academic philosopher and author Simon Blackburn visits the RSA to explore the history of self-love through the writings of great thinkers from Aristotle to Adam Smith, Kant and Iris Murdoch - and to reflect on its contemporary manifestations - from the rise in cosmetic surgery and the burgeoning self-esteem industry, to the tragic over-confidence of Bush and Blair and the fatal commodification of social life.

Speaker: Simon Blackburn, philosopher and author of "Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love" (Princeton University Press, 2014).

Chair: Jonathan Rowson, director, Social Brain Centre, RSA
To find out more about this talk, visit the event page.

Listen to the podcast of the full event including audience Q&A.

• Download the video (mp4)
• Watch Simon Blackburn on our YouTube Channel
• Watch Simon Blackburn on our Vimeo Channel

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How Does Mindfulness Improve Self-Control? (from Greater Good)

This excellent article, from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, looks at recent research (by talking with the author of the research) that suggests a mindfulness practice can increase our sense of self-control. This is part of the Mindful Monday series from Greater Good.

How Does Mindfulness Improve Self-Control? 

By Emily Nauman | March 24, 2014

In a new installment of our Mindful Monday series, we talk with researcher Rimma Teper about how mindfulness helps improve executive function. 

We have emotions for a reason. Anger in response to injustice can signal that the situation needs to change; sadness in response to loss can signal that we’d like to keep the people we love in our lives.

Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. Dan Archer

It’s when we ruminate, or get caught up in our emotions, that they might become maladaptive. That’s when emotion regulation can be helpful and healthy.

Previous research has shown that mindfulness can be an effective tool to help regulate our emotions. But why? A new model suggests that the ability to control one’s behavior—a concept that researchers call executive control—may play a role.

In a recent paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, researcher Rimma Teper and her colleagues at the University of Toronto write that, despite the common misconception that meditation “empties our head” of emotions, mindfulness actually helps us become more aware and accepting of emotional signals—which helps us to control our behavior.

I talked with Rimma Teper about how mindfulness relates to emotion regulation, and how executive control fits into the picture.

Emily Nauman: In your paper, you write that mindfulness helps us change our attitude toward an emotion, rather than focusing on changing an emotion itself. What is the difference between changing our relationship to an emotion and changing the emotion itself? What’s beneficial about the former?

Rimma Teper: I should start off by saying that I am of the view that emotional experiences are mostly a good thing! We, as humans, evolved to have emotional responses to certain situations that actually help us in our everyday lives.

For instance, feeling fear when you see a snake signals that you should stay away. Feeling love for your family and friends promotes behaviors that foster close relationships. Of course, there are cases where emotional responses may be overblown, or maladaptive—and this is where emotion regulation becomes a necessary tool. Mindfulness is just one strategy that can help with emotion regulation.

As you mentioned, most emotion regulation strategies that people engage in change the nature of the emotion. These strategies may include reevaluating the situation that elicited the emotion, or suppressing the emotion altogether through distraction or some other means. Mindfulness, on the other hand, encourages people to observe their emotional experiences without trying to change them.

I think that one benefit of this approach is that it discards the tendency of “labeling” one’s emotions as good or bad. It encourages people to simply observe the contents of their mind. In this way, I think that mindfulness allows for greater self-insight.

So for instance, if I feel angry, I might try to observe my thoughts without getting caught up in them. I would also pay attention to the bodily sensations that accompany that emotion, like my heart beating quickly. By paying attention to way in which the emotion unfolds in your body, step-by-step, mindful people are able delay and dampen the rumination or overblown reaction that often accompanies it.



EN: What is executive control, and why did you suspect that executive control plays a role in the link between mindfulness and emotion regulation?

RT: Executive control can often be equated with willpower. There are a number of skills that fall under the umbrella of executive control, but the one that is specifically related to mindfulness is the ability to inhibit one’s impulses.

Previous research, including some of our own, has suggested that mindfulness may help to improve executive control. In addition, a lot of previous research has also linked mindfulness to improvements in emotion regulation.

But no one really knew exactly how mindfulness improved emotion regulation. This “gap” in the research made us wonder whether executive control might be the pathway through which mindful people are better able to regulate their emotions.

After all, executive control involves the inhibition of automatic or impulsive behaviors. And for most of us, getting carried away with our emotions is something we do automatically and without notice. When we feel sad or angry, we often let our emotions snowball. We also often ruminate about negative things that have happened to us. So to us, it made sense that executive control would be involved in curbing these maladaptive patterns.

EN: How have people thought about mindfulness and emotion regulation in the past, and what insights does your model bring to our understanding of how mindfulness and emotion regulation are related?

RT: The link between mindfulness and improved emotion regulation is certainly not a new one. What our model does is examine the nature of this relationship and helps to understand how mindfulness may improve emotion regulation.

There is often a misconception that mindfulness simply leads to less emotionality, or that mindful people experience less emotion.

Our model proposes that this is not the case. Specifically, we suggest that mindfulness leads to improvements in emotion regulation not by eliminating or reducing emotional experience, but rather through a present-moment awareness and acceptance of emotional experience. This sort of attentive and open stance towards one’s own emotions and thoughts allows the individual to still experience emotion, but also to detect emotions early on and stop them from spiraling out of control.

EN: How can we apply the insights of this model to our daily lives? What’s useful about understanding that mindfulness helps us become aware of and accept emotions, rather than “emptying our head” of emotions?

RT: As I mentioned before, emotions are usually a good thing! But there are also cases when they can be disruptive and maladaptive.

So rather than getting rid of emotional experience altogether, our model provides insight into the ways in which we can prevent or limit the disruptive aspects of emotions, like rumination. And this can be done by monitoring your thoughts and sensations, but also by adopting a non-judgmental attitude towards them.

Jose Luis Stevens: Awaken the Inner Shaman (Sounds True)

From Sounds True, Tami Simon speaks with former psychotherapist and current shaman, Dr. José Luis Stevens, about his new book with Sounds True, Awaken the Inner Shaman: A Guide to the Power Path of the Heart.

Jose Luis Stevens: Awaken the Inner Shaman

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. José Luis Stevens, a leading shamanic teacher who brings indigenous wisdom to personal and organizational challenges. José is the cofounder of the Power Path School of Shamanism and the author of 18 books and ebooks, including his latest book with Sounds True, Awaken the Inner Shaman: A Guide to the Power Path of the Heart. In this episode, Tami speaks with José about what the Inner Shaman is and how we can access it through practice and surrender. He explores shamanic ways of seeing, relating to your body, and actualizing your potential. José also examines the questions of trust and faith for both the Inner Shaman and the unfolding of world events. (68 minutes)

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more from Jose Luis Stevens:

Awaken the Inner Shaman

Here is a description of the book:

Within you is a greater, wiser self that is not bound by your fears, worries, or perceived limitations. Dr. José Luis Stevens calls this the Inner Shaman—the part of you that connects directly to the true source of the universe. "The shamans of every tradition know that the physical world we can see and touch is a mere shadow of the true spirit world," writes Dr. Stevens. With Awaken the Inner Shaman, he presents a direct and practical guide for opening our eyes to the greater wisdom and knowing within—and stepping into the power and responsibility we possess to shape and serve our world. In this rousing and provocative book, he invites readers to discover:

• What is the Inner Shaman? How an understanding of our deeper spiritual potential shows up in every mystical and scientific tradition.
• Seeing through the heart—why the heart offers us the most immediate path for accessing the Inner Shaman
• Illuminating the Inner Shaman through spirituality, quantum physics, medical science, and experiential knowing
• The Inner Shaman in action—how to stop living from the egoic mind and put your true essence in charge
• Eight tools to strengthen your connection to the Inner Shaman, and much more

Humanity has become enthralled by the Siren’s song of technological progress, which has lured us away from the spiritual source that truly sustains us. In Awaken the Inner Shaman, Dr. José Stevens challenges us to reclaim our lost power to heal, see truly, and fulfill our purpose in life. As Dr. Stevens writes: "The Inner Shaman, suppressed and ignored for centuries, can be discovered in the most obvious place possible—within your own heart."

Rebecca Goldstein, Plato at the Googlepex - Authors@Google

Philosopher-novelist Rebecca Goldstein (wife of Steven Pinker) has a new book out, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (2014). Recently, she stopped by Google to talk about her new book.

Rebecca Goldstein - Authors@Google

Published on Mar 27, 2014

Goldstein returns to Google, this time with Plato, to talk about her new book.

Abstract from Goldstein's site: "At the heart of the latest work from acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein lies one question: is philosophy obsolete? In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX (Pantheon Books/March 4, 2014), Goldstein proves why philosophy is here to stay -- and in fact more relevant today than ever before -- by revealing its hidden (though essential) role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. Goldstein does so in a wholly unique way -- by imagining Plato (the original philosopher) come to life in the twenty-first century. As he embarks on a multicity speaking tour, Goldstein asks: how would Plato handle a host on FOX News who denies that there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a Tiger Mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato's brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? And what would Plato make of Google, and the idea that knowledge can be crowdsourced rather than reasoned out by experts? Goldstein also provides an in-depth study of Plato's views, while examining the culture responsible for producing them. With scholarly depth and a novelist's imagination and wit, she probes the deepest issues confronting our time, by allowing us to understand the source of Plato's theories, and to eavesdrop as he takes on the modern world."

The Biocentric Multiverse - An Example of [Eroneously] Collapsing the Subjective and the Objective

A few years ago (2009), Dr. Robert Lanza published Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, a model he claims positions consciousness as foundation of the universe as we know it. In essence, he argues that our consciousness of the universe brings it into being, which is based on a faulty understanding of quantum mechanics.

Lanza, like Deepak Chopra and B Alan Wallace, relies on a misunderstanding of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to suggest that observation is necessary to the determination of the state of a quantum system. But there is research that disproves this interpretation.

First, here is an excellent explanation of Heisenberg's model (Geoff Brumfiel, Nature News, Sept 11, 2012):

At the foundation of quantum mechanics is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Simply put, the principle states that there is a fundamental limit to what one can know about a quantum system. For example, the more precisely one knows a particle's position, the less one can know about its momentum, and vice versa. The limit is expressed as a simple equation that is straightforward to prove mathematically.

Heisenberg sometimes explained the uncertainty principle as a problem of making measurements. His most well-known thought experiment involved photographing an electron. To take the picture, a scientist might bounce a light particle off the electron's surface. That would reveal its position, but it would also impart energy to the electron, causing it to move. Learning about the electron's position would create uncertainty in its velocity; and the act of measurement would produce the uncertainty needed to satisfy the principle.

He then reports some research [Rozema, L. A. et al. 2012. Phys. Rev. Lett. 109(100404)] that supports the belief that measurement does not always introduce more uncertainty in a system:

The researchers made a ‘weak’ measurement of the photon’s polarization in one plane — not enough to disturb it, but enough to produce a rough sense of its orientation. Next, they measured the polarization in the second plane. Then they made an exact, or 'strong', measurement of the first polarization to see whether it had been disturbed by the second measurement.

When the researchers did the experiment multiple times, they found that measurement of one polarization did not always disturb the other state as much as the uncertainty principle predicted. In the strongest case, the induced fuzziness was as little as half of what would be predicted by the uncertainty principle.

This research doesn't do away with the uncertainty principle, but it does demonstrate that it is possible to measure some features of a quantum system without introducing noise into the system.

A related idea is the Shroedinger's Cat thought experiment, which is often taken as proof of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This model proposes that the act of observing a system results in the collapse of all possible states into one state, the observed state. This is known as the wavefunction collapse. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is one of the six basic tenets of the Copenhagen interpretation, a term that is actually a misnomer in that there was never any coherent interpretation associated with this model. The notion that there was a Copenhagen interpretation arose when Heisenberg used it in his refutation of David Bohm's model, a move he later regretted.

[Bohm's model, the implicate, explicate, and generative orders (via Wikipedia), proposes that

"things, such as particles, objects, and indeed subjects" exist as "semi-autonomous quasi-local features" of an underlying activity. These features can be considered to be independent only up to a certain level of approximation in which certain criteria are fulfilled.

Bohm, working with the then Stanford-based neuroscientist, Karl Pribram, extended this into a holonomic model of the brain.]

One of the more difficult aspects of the Copenhagen model, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, was also known as the EPR paradox, developed by  Albert Einstein and his colleagues Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen. One of the issues Einstein noted with the then-standard model of quantum mechanics is that it allowed for a version of quantum entanglement that violates the general theory of relativity - i.e., that nothing moves faster than the speed of light. But Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle allowed for exactly that, so the EPR paradox was developed. Via Wikipedia:

Heisenberg's principle was an attempt to provide a classical explanation of a quantum effect sometimes called non-locality. According to EPR there were two possible explanations. Either there was some interaction between the particles, even though they were separated, or the information about the outcome of all possible measurements was already present in both particles.

The EPR authors (EPR combines the first letter of the three men's last names) preferred the latter of these two explanations, which allowed that the general relativity remained intact. The EPR solution to the problem was local hidden variables, but Bell's Theorem has since been accepted as a successful refutation of the hidden variables.

A more recent model, the Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) model, developed by Carlo Rovelli in 1994, offers a way out of one of the more difficult aspects of the Copenhagen model, the EPR paradox. The RQM treats the state of a quantum system as being observer-dependent, that is, the state is the relation between the observer and the system.

Again, from Wikipedia:

The physical content of the theory is not to do with objects themselves, but the relations between them. As Rovelli puts it: "Quantum mechanics is a theory about the physical description of physical systems relative to other systems, and this is a complete description of the world".[2]

The essential idea behind RQM is that different observers may give different accounts of the same series of events: for example, to one observer at a given point in time, a system may be in a single, "collapsed" eigenstate, while to another observer at the same time, it may appear to be in a superposition of two or more states. Consequently, if quantum mechanics is to be a complete theory, RQM argues that the notion of "state" describes not the observed system itself, but the relationship, or correlation, between the system and its observer(s). The state vector of conventional quantum mechanics becomes a description of the correlation of some degrees of freedom in the observer, with respect to the observed system. However, it is held by RQM that this applies to all physical objects, whether or not they are conscious or macroscopic (all systems are quantum systems). Any "measurement event" is seen simply as an ordinary physical interaction, an establishment of the sort of correlation discussed above. The proponents of the relational interpretation argue that the approach clears up a number of traditional interpretational difficulties with quantum mechanics, while being simultaneously conceptually elegant and ontologically parsimonious.

The RQM model offers the best solution to the EPR Paradox, and it does so without relying on super-luminal information transfer (faster than the speed of light):

Thus the relational interpretation, by shedding the notion of an "absolute state" of the system, allows for an analysis of the EPR paradox which neither violates traditional locality constraints, nor implies superluminal information transfer, since we can assume that all observers are moving at comfortable sub-light velocities. And, most importantly, the results of every observer are in full accordance with those expected by conventional quantum mechanics.

Returning specifically the Biocentrism model of Lanza, Vinod Wadhawan (a condensed matter physicist) and Ajita Kamal (an evolutionary biologist) offered a great "debunking" of Lanza's model, noting that it is the philosophical stance known as idealism masquerading as science. The title of their article (2009) is "Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe," posted at Nirmukta.

Here is one small section in which they correct Lanza's misrepresentation of objective reality:

Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between being the ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself. In the first instance the conscious perception of space and time is an experiential trick that the mind uses to make sense of the objective universe, and in the other space and time are actual physical manifestations of the mind. The former is tested and true while the latter is an idealistic notion that is not supported by science. The experiential conception of space and time is different from objective space and time that comprise the universe. This difference is similar to how color is different from photon frequency. The former is subjective while the latter is objective.

Can Lanza deny all the evidence that, whereas we humans emerged on the scene very recently, our Earth and the solar system and the universe at large have been there all along? What about all the objective evidence that life forms have emerged and evolved to greater and greater complexity, resulting in the emergence of humans at a certain stage in the evolutionary history of the Earth? What about all the fossil evidence for how biological and other forms of complexity have been evolving? How can humans arrogate to themselves the power to create objective reality?

Here is more from their long and erudite article, this section dealing with the many worlds model, another approach based on a dissatisfaction with the Copenhagen model:

Hugh Everett, during the mid-1950s, expressed total dissatisfaction with the Copenhagen interpretation: ‘The Copenhagen Interpretation is hopelessly incomplete because of its a priori reliance on classical physics … as well as a philosophic monstrosity with a “reality” concept for the macroscopic world and denial of the same for the microcosm.’ The Copenhagen interpretation implied that equations of quantum mechanics apply only to the microscopic world, and cease to be relevant in the macroscopic or ‘real’ world.

Everett offered a new interpretation, which presaged the modern ideas of quantum decoherence. Everett’s ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is now taken more seriously, although not entirely in its original form. He simply let the mathematics of the quantum theory show the way for understanding logically the interface between the microscopic world and the macroscopic world. He made the observer an integral part of the system being observed, and introduced a universal wave function that applies comprehensively to the totality of the system being observed and the observer. This means that even macroscopic objects exist as quantum superpositions of all allowed quantum states. There is thus no need for the discontinuity of a wave-function collapse when a measurement is made on the microscopic quantum system in a macroscopic world.

Wave function bifurcation

Everett examined the question: What would things be like if no contributing quantum states to a superposition of states are banished artificially after seeing the results of an observation? He proved that the wave function of the observer would then bifurcate at each interaction of the observer with the system being observed. Suppose an electron can have two possible quantum states A and B, and its wave function is a linear superposition of these two. The evolution of the composite or universal wave function describing the electron and the observer would then contain two branches corresponding to each of the states A and B. Each branch has a copy of the observer, one which sees state A as a result of the measurement, and the other which sees state B. In accordance with the all-important principle of linear superposition in quantum mechanics, the branches do not influence each other, and each embarks on a different future (or a different ‘universe’), independent of the other. The copy of the observer in each universe is oblivious to the existence of other copies of itself and other universes, although the ‘full reality’ is that each possibility has actually happened. This reasoning can be made more abstract and general by removing the distinction between the observer and the observed, and stating that, at each interaction among the components of the composite system, the total or universal wave function would bifurcate as described above, giving rise to multiple universes or many worlds.

A modern and somewhat different version of this interpretation of quantum mechanics introduces the term quantum decoherence to rationalise how the branches become independent, and how each turns out to represent our classical or macroscopic reality. Quantum computing is now a reality, and it is based on such understanding of quantum mechanics.

And, finally, if one is to deal with Lanza's model, then one must deal with the definition of consciousness, a definition that is largely not agreed upon by an two theorists, it seems. Here is the refutation of Lanza's model on the grounds that he hopelessly muddles the definition of consciousness:

One criticism of biocentrism comes from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, who says “It looks like an opposite of a theory, because he doesn’t explain how consciousness happens at all. He’s stopping where the fun begins.”

The logic behind this criticism is obvious. Without a descriptive explanation for consciousness and how it ‘creates’ the universe, biocentrism is not useful. In essence, Lanza calls for the abandonment of modern theoretical physics and its replacement with a magical solution. Here are a few questions that one might ask of the idea:

1. What is this consciousness?
2. Why does this consciousness exist?
3. What is the nature of the interaction between this consciousness and the universe?
4. Is the problem of infinite regression applicable to consciousness itself?
5. Even if Lanza’s interpretation of the anthropic principle is a valid argument against modern theoretical physics, does the biocentric model of consciousness create a bigger ontological problem than the one it attempts to solve?

And this:

Consider this statement by Lanza:

“Consciousness cannot exist without a living, biological creature to embody its perceptive powers of creation.“

How can consciousness create the universe if it doesn’t exist? How can the “living, biological creature” exist if the universe has not been created yet? It becomes apparent that Lanza is muddling the meaning of the word ‘consciousness.’ In one sense he equates it to subjective experience that is tied to a physical brain. In another, he assigns to consciousness a spatio-temporal logic that exists outside of physical manifestation. In this case, the above questions become: 1. What is this spatio-temporal logic?; 2. Why does this spatio-temporal logic exist? and so on…

The Cartesian Theater

Daniel Dennett’s criticism of biocentrism centres on Lanza’s non-explanation of the nature of consciousness. In fact, even from a biological perspective Lanza’s conception of consciousness is unclear. For example, he consistently equates consciousness with subjective experience while stressing its independence from the objective universe (see Lanza’s quote below). This is an appeal to the widespread but erroneous intuition towards Cartesian Dualism. In this view, consciousness (subjective experience) belongs to a different plane of reality than the one on which the material universe is constructed. Lanza requires this general definition of consciousness to construct his theory of biocentrism. He uses it in the same way that Descartes used it – as a semantic tool to deconstruct reality. In fact, Lanza’s theory of biocentrism is a sophisticated non-explanation for the ‘brain in a vat’ problem that plagued philosophers for centuries. However, instead of subscribing to Cartesian Dualism, he attempts a Cartesian Monism by invoking quantum mechanics. To be exact, his view is Monistic Idealism - the idea that consciousness is everything- but the Cartesian bias is an essential element in his arguments.

Lanza's model relies on a form of dualism that is disguised as idealistic monism.

Furthermore, his denial of any scientific understanding of consciousness is a straw man argument and it is empty, considering that Lanza proposes no useful mechanism for consciousness, nor a definition, but still gives it a central role in his theory of the universe.

For me, the Relational quantum mechanics model offers the best solution to many of the problems of quantum theory, including the role of consciousness. It is an essentially postmodern model of physics, while much of earlier quantum theory is still bogged down in an mechanistic model.

All of that is simply my way of saying that the article below, a defense of the Biocentric model from Jonathan Lyons at Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies is sadly misguided.

A Biocentric Multiverse

Jønathan Lyons
Ethical Technology

Posted: Mar 24, 2014

I’ve been thinking of ways in which Biocentric Universe Theory and multiverse theory could both be true. What if our nature as conscious beings inhabiting a multiverse of endless possibilities, where we are quantum-superposition beings, actually all adds up to us creating the multiverse, while perceiving time and space only within the limitations of our immediately observable, three-spatial/one-time-dimensional universe?

Down the rabbit hole!



Big Guns in the physics community are embracing multiverse theory more and more. One interpretation of this theory is that everything that can possibly happen, does happen, in one universe or another.

Background: Robert Lanza’s Biocentric Universe Theory

Robert Paul Lanza is an American medical doctor, scientist, Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Cell Technology and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. (For more on Dr. Lanza, and for some fascinating essays and articles containing further insight into Biocentric Universe Theory, visit his Website: http://www.robertlanza.com/

• At subatomic level, everything exists in an undefined state until observed
• Example: Double-slit experiment

• The Observer Effect

• Because of this evidence, holds Biocentric Universe Theory, it is consciousness that creates the universe as we know it, and not the other way around.

Each but the last of those statements is experimentally proven; the last is a tantalizing possibility, and one I wish to continue to learn about.

A multiverse — that is, an infinite number of universes — could be stacked one on top of the other in even a tiny, single, spatial dimension in addition to the three spatial dimensions and single time dimension we experience. And in an eleven-dimensional multiverse, there are plenty of dimensions left to go around after we account for the four we can perceive.

al outcomes. Next, consider the observer effect: That the universe does not become solid until it is observed is demonstrated by the dual-slit experiment and the observer effect. What this means is that at the subatomic level, the entire universe exists as a colossal Schroedinger Probability wave, existing only as potentialites.

Until, that is, it is observed.

At that point the wave function collapses from whatever probabilities were possible to the single, actual outcome. Before it is observed. the universe exists in a superposition:

“Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics that holds that a physical system—such as an electron—exists partly in all its particular theoretically possible states (or, configuration of its properties) simultaneously; but when measured or observed, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations (as described in interpretation of quantum mechanics).”

In Biocentric Universe Theory, as I mentioned, consciousness thereby gives rise to the universe, and not the other way around. It does so through the act of observation. In observing the universe, we cause the collapse of the Probability Wave to its single outcome. In our universe, anyway.

What if the act of observation is the tool by which new universes are created?

Comic Interlude: An actual product you can buy over at ThinkGeek: “$20 kit produces trillions of universes."

Are you willing to take on the responsibility that comes with bringing trillions of universes into existence, each teeming with sentient life? That's something to ponder before plunking down $20 for this make-your-own-universe kit, created by <artist Jonathon Keats.

If two events are possible, quantum theory assumes that both occur simultaneously - until an observer determines the outcome. For example, in Schrödinger's famous thought experiment, in which his cat may have been killed with a 50 per cent probability, the cat is both alive and dead until someone checks. When the observation is made, the universe splits into two, one for each possible outcome. For example, Schrödinger's cat would be alive in one universe and dead in the other universe.”

Quantum physicists say that this is exactly what happens. The ongoing, infinite production of the multiverse would, therefore, be an ongoing act of creation caused by observation continuously collapsing probability wave, continuously forcing subatomic particle from a quantum superposition representing all possibilities open to them, not to a single outcome, but to a single outcome in a single universe; it would also cause every other possibility represented by the probability wave to occur in every universe where the same event is being observed.

Enter time:

• "Time is just an illusion. Einstein told us that."
• "What quantum physicists and Einstein tell us is that everything is happening simultaneously."
• "There is no time for the Universe and there is no size for the Universe."

​If all time is simultaneous, than our nature as conscious beings could also be described as our nature as quantum-superposition beings; consider the Scrodinger’s Cat thought experiment:

“One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

—Erwin Schrödinger, Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik (The present situation in quantum mechanics), Naturwissenschaften (translated by John D. Trimmer in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society)”

While I would argue that the cat’s consciousness would probably play some role in the timing of the wave’s collapse, the main point is this: by this reasoning, when we enter a period in which the cat may or may not be dead, then its living or dead status has not been observed, and the cat herself exists in a superposition — that is, if you will, neither zero (dead) nor one (alive), but both, simultaneously.

If all time is simultaneous, then we humans are simultaneously one (alive) during our lifespans and zero (dead) outside our lifespans. Meaning that we, and all forms of life, are beings who exist in superposition, spread out across time and the multiverse, expressing every potentiality that could ever be — indeed, creating every such potentiality.

Because if our nature is that of conscious beings inhabiting a multiverse of endless possibilities, where we are quantum-superposition beings, all of this actually adds up to us creating the multiverse by observing parts of it, while perceiving time and space only within the limitations of our immediately observable, three-spatial/one-time-dimensional universe.

---

Jønathan Lyons is an affiliate scholar for the IEET. He is also a transhumanist parent, an essayist, and an author of experimental fiction both long and short. He lives in central Pennsylvania and teaches at Bucknell University. His fiction publications include Minnows: A Shattered Novel.

20 Best TED Talks - Readers’ Poll Results (via Vice)

This is awesome . . . especially #s 9, 11, 15, 19, and 20. Thank you Vice.

Enjoy!

20 Best TED Talks

Readers’ Poll Results

By Sean Tejaratchi | Mar 25 2014

With more than 1,600 online videos that collectively have over a billion views, the world of TED Talks can be overwhelming to the uninitiated. To help, we asked our readers to submit their picks for the 20 most informative, provocative, and inspiring TED Talks in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design. We received more than 12,000 ballots, and now we’re pleased to share the results.


The Future of Sex Zoos: Balancing Fetish, Innovation, and Conservation, Bill Gates


How to Fight a Cow Col. Frank Tuplin


Community-Based Arson Initiatives: Ideas at Work Taureen Helms


What a Courageous Georgia Cat Breeder Can Teach Us About Eugenics Dr. Barbara Mershepp, PhD


Wireless Headset Mics: What We’ve Learned, What’s Still to Come Klefton Marbell


How to Fight a Chimp Col. Frank Tuplin


Love Will Turn You Around: Ten Days to Mind-Blowing Anal Sex Kenny Rogers


How to Dispose of a Chimp’s Body Col. Frank Tuplin


Shitting Underwater Pavel Gibbons


The Secret Language of Scarfs Dr. Beautrice Garmin, MD


Rethinking the Idea of “Rethinking” Sween Griggs


Why Parasites Target Hollywood Royalty Dr. Vikram Parmalat, MD


What Life with a Slightly Larger Head Has Taught Me About Diversity Anacin Shroeper


Raising a Drug-Free Child—the Hamas Way Uffrica Lofgren


Emerging Markets in Suburban Bush Meat Prius Ramsey-Shilling


Milk Trends Brayff Johnson


The Wordless Art of Claw Gestures Nuncy Thamber


WomenTalk: Women Talking to Women About Being Women Umoja Holmo


This World Exists for My Pleasure: The Power of Quantum Affirmations Dr. Dodd Olper, PhD


Rabbits: Nature’s Furry Pieces of Shit Dr. Björn Karensdottir, PhD

Ethics: A Radical-constructivist Approach (via Constructivist Foundations)

From the open access journal Constructivist Foundations [9(2), March, 15, 2014], this is an interesting and somewhat philosophical exploration of taking a radical constructivist approach to ethics.

While radical constructivist models generally deal only with cognitive knowledge, Quale seeks to find a way to also include non-cognitive knowledge as a way to expand the parameters of radical constructivist theory to include the capability of constructing ethical frameworks.

Presented below are the first two sections of the text, as well as the commentaries on this article from other scholars. Complete references are available at the CF site. PDF is free to download following registering name and email address.

Ethics: A Radical-constructivist Approach

Andreas Quale • Dept. of Teacher Education, University of Oslo, Norway

Context • The theory of radical constructivism offers a tool for the evaluation of knowledge in general: especially with regard to its epistemic and ontological character. This applies in particular to knowledge that is non-cognitive, such as, e.g., ethical convictions.  
Problem • What impact can radical constructivism have on the topic of ethics? Specifically, how can ethical issues be resolved within a radical-constructivist epistemic approach?  
Method • I extend the theory of radical constructivism to include also items of non-cognitive knowledge. This makes it possible to discuss ethical issues, which are non-cognitive, in a constructivist epistemic and ontological perspective. Some arguments against this conception of “strictly personal ethics” are discussed.  
Results • Radical constructivism is neutral on ethical issues, and thus cannot be invoked to endorse any particular ethical position. However, this causes no problem for the theory: the individual knower will construct her own ethical values and convictions, as part of her store of noncognitive knowledge, in interaction with her environment (including other individuals). Hence ethical values cannot be argued in cognitive terms; and this elevates the knower into a position of personal responsibility with respect to ethical issues.  
Constructivist content • I focus on the role played by radical constructivism in the approach to cognitive vs. non-cognitive knowledge. The construction of knowledge (of any kind) emerges as a strictly personal enterprise. For instance, in the context addressed here, constructed non-cognitive knowledge forms a basis for the individual knower’s ethical position.

Radical constructivism and the notion of cognition

« 1 » Ernst von Glasersfeld [1] defines radical constructivism (rC) as an epistemic theory, based on two fundamental propositions, which may be summarized as follows (Glasersfeld 1995a):

rC1: Knowledge is not passively received, but is actively constructed by the cognising
subject.
rC2: The function of cognition is adaptive, and serves the subject’s organization of her own experiential world, not the discovery of an objectively given reality.

« 2 » Thus, knowledge is constructed by, and resides in, the individual knower – i.e., the person who possesses this knowledge. it is based on her sense perceptions and her reflections upon these, and serves as a model describing some part of her own experiential world. According to rC there is no “right way” to perform such a construction: in other words, it is not possible to identify a “correct” model – i.e., one that gives a faithful and correct description of the world.

« 3 » For the arguments that follow below, it is important to observe that these two propositions make explicit reference to cognitive knowledge, and to the role played by cognition in our construction of knowledge.

« 4 » The term “cognition” is generally taken to denote mental activities of rational thinking, knowing and reasoning. There is an extensive amount of discussion of this topic in the literature – see, e.g., the comprehensive and exhaustive article by Robert Wilson and Lucia Foglia (2011). Here I propose to “sharpen” this concept a little, focussing on its significance for communication of the knowledge that is constructed. Thus, I take the term “cognition” to refer to aspects of knowledge that are not based on emotion or volition. The “product of cognition,” here regarded as a result of learning, will be denoted as “cognitive knowledge.” [2]

« 5 » To illustrate, let us consider some examples of knowledge that is not cognitive. It will be convenient for our purposes to take the notions of “personal preference” and “personal belief ” to be subsumed under the general category of “emotion.” so, consider the following statements, which might be made by an individual knower:

ƒ “I shall now leave this room” (volition, an act of decision by the knower)
ƒ “I love her” (an emotion, as felt by the knower)
ƒ “I like jazz music” (a personal preference of the knower)
ƒ “I believe in God” (an element of the knower’s personal faith)

« 6 » These statements describe different types of non-cognitive knowledge, as experienced by the knower, and hence they may serve to illustrate some aspects of “what cognition is not.” So, with this as background, let us ask: What is it then?

« 7 » According to the viewpoint that will be adopted here, the most important characteristic of cognitive knowledge is that it is based on reasoning of some kind, using rules and procedures that can be agreed on, and the knowledge thus subsequently demonstrated and communicated by the knower
to other individuals. (The natural sciences, such as physics, of course offer prime examples of such knowledge.) On the other hand, non-cognitive – sometimes termed “affective” or “emotive” – knowledge deals with personal experiences that cannot be thus demonstrated or communicated: emotion, volition, preferences, values, likes and dislikes, beliefs, etc. Two simple examples illustrate this distinction: I can demonstrate and communicate to you how newton’s law of gravitation operates, and how it describes many observable features of the solar system – this forms part of my store of cognitive knowledge; but I can not demonstrate or communicate to you how it “feels” for me to like a particular piece of music, why I like it (and why you should like it too..!) – this is an instance of non-cognitive knowledge on my part.

« 8 » Thus knowledge, as possessed by a knower, may be described by two mutually exclusive attributes: cognitive and noncognitive. Note that any particular item of knowledge, as constructed by a human knower, will in general have both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects: i.e., aspects that are communicable to other knowers, as described above, and aspects that are not. Thus, consider, e.g., the knowledge experienced by an individual person, embodied in the statement “I shall now leave this room” given above. As it stands, this statement is an expression of non-cognitive knowledge, describing volition: a decision of the individual knower that he intends to leave the room. But this decision will only make sense if this person knows that he is present in a room, and that there are means of exiting (say, an unlocked door) – and these items will be experienced by him as cognitive knowledge, which can be demonstrated and communicated to other individuals in the room. It is in this context of communicability that knowledge is characterised, in the argument presented here, as being cognitive or non-cognitive. [3]

« 9 » With this in mind, we shall now widen the scope of the two basic propositions rC1 and rC2 of rC, shown above. As they stand, they deal only with cognitive knowledge, and with cognitive learning as the procedure for gaining such knowledge. So, let us consider the following slightly amended versions of these two propositions (with changes from the original text shown in italics):

rC1ʹ: Knowledge of any kind is not passively received, but is actively constructed by the knower.
rC2ʹ: The function of the process of construction is adaptive, and serves the knower’s organization of her own experiential world, not the discovery of an objectively given reality.

« 10 » As is evident, the propositions rC1ʹ and rC2ʹ now address any kind of knowledge, not only the cognitive kind. Or, equivalently: the theory of rC, originally restricted by rC1 and rC2 to apply to cognitive knowledge only, is now extended to apply to all kinds of knowledge construction.

« 11 » With this extension in mind, we now move on to the topic of ethics.

Ethics: A non-cognitive dimension of RC

« 12 » I maintain, and will argue here, that ethical issues belong to the non-cognitive dimension of knowledge, and hence fall outside the scope of cognitive knowledge, (based on reasoning using agreed-on rules and procedures), such as described above. Thus, the truth value of an ethical proposition cannot be communicated between individual persons in the form of cognitive knowledge, as this is defined above. In this sense, then, it seems appropriate to describe rC as being ethically neutral. However this claim, while valid as far as it goes, needs some further elaboration. So, let us take a closer look at some of the implications of rC for ethical issues.

« 13 » It may be noted that the purported ethical neutrality of rC has acquired certain strongly negative connotations. For instance, it has been taken by some to have rather ominous political implications – thus, it has been claimed that for radical constructivists “there can be no commitment to democratic values…,” and (even worse) that this theory “…seems far more at home with non-democratic forms of educational and governmental practices” (McCarty & schwandt 2000: 77f). Now, these are grave charges, and they need to be seriously addressed. We will return to this issue below, and demonstrate that the charges are unfounded.

« 14 » It is a notable fact that several authors have maintained that the ethical neutrality of rC does indeed constitute a problem for the theory. among these authors we find many of its critics (e.g., nola 1997 and slezak 2000), but also some of its supporters (e.g., Hardy & taylor 1997). in fact, in a book by Leslie steffe & Patrick Thompson (2000b) dedicated to the epistemology of rC, a number of  articles address the relevance of ethics in this context; and in this book von Glasersfeld himself states that one desirable goal for the future is that “the radical constructivist agenda should include an effort to develop viable theoretical models in the areas of ethics and social interaction” (Glasersfeld 2000: 8).

« 15 » So, one may well ask, must the self-professed ethical neutrality of rC with respect to ethical issues be considered as a deficiency of the theory? To answer this question, we shall have to take a closer look at the meaning of ethics, when considered in a radical constructivist perspective. Let me hasten to say, though, that this is not the place to undertake a thorough discussion of the discipline of ethics, which indeed constitutes a broad and diverse branch of philosophy, extensively discussed in the literature. Here, we will adopt a rather narrow and simplistic viewpoint, and discuss how ethical issues may connect with the theory of rC.

« 16 » The term “ethics” is generally taken to address issues of morality in a wide sense (e.g., Gert 2012) – with the underlying idea of establishing standards of right and wrong, or of good and bad, with regard to human character and conduct. This has been a major topic of investigation by philosophers throughout human history. Moreover, it constitutes an important aspect of many religious beliefs, where it is generally grounded in the notion of divine decree: to the believer, it is the authority of her religion that gives support to her ethical convictions. In general, it deals with interpersonal relationships, addressing the issue of what is the “right way” for us to behave towards other people. [4] Note that the existence of this environment is accepted as given (thus repudiating the philosophical position of solipsism); on the other hand, any knowledge of it must be constructed in the mind of the knower, and there is no way to identify any one construction as being objectively “right” or “true.”

« 17 » We shall be concerned with what is known to philosophers as normative ethics. This is an inquiry into, or a theory describing, standards (norms) of right and wrong as guidelines for human behaviour – it aims to prescribe what people ought to do, or how they ought to behave, in various concrete situations. it should be noted that such a theory requires ethical argumentation: it must provide some answers to questions of why a given course of action is ethical, while another is not. [5]


NOTES for the above sections.

1 | The theory of rC was originally proposed by von Glasersfeld (1974, 1983, 1991, 1995a, 2000). Cf. also the discussion in Quale (2008).
2 | it should be noted that this is a somewhat restrictive definition of the concept of cognition. Indeed, von Glasersfeld generally uses this term in a wider sense in his discussion of the construction of knowledge in rC (e.g., Glasersfeld & Varela 1987; Glasersfeld 1991b). However, I am arguing that this restriction, as presented here, can provide some additional insight into the construction in rC of “intangible” items of knowledge, such as, e.g., ethical convictions.
3 | I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the need to clarify this point.
4 | In fact, many would extend the notion of ethics to address our relationship with all living organisms, now and in the future; in this wider perspective, maltreatment of animals and damage done to the environment would also become ethical issues.)
5 | of course, such argumentation will generally tend to reflect the actual practices of whatever cultural context it originates in. For instance, in a society using slave labour – as many societies have done throughout history right up to recent times – one might expect to meet ethical arguments defending the proposition that there is nothing morally reprehensible about the institution of slavery, and that it is in fact a perfectly acceptable way to organise the labour force.

Commentaries on this article from other scholars (published in the same journal, same issue):

Constructing Models of Ethical Knowledge: A Scientific Enterprise (Open Peer Commentary)

Leslie P. Steffe

Abstract · Full text in PDF (113 kB)

Ethics: A Sociological View (Open Peer Commentary)

Philip Lewin

Abstract · Full text in PDF (75 kB)

Can a “Generic” Subject Produce an Ethical Stance through Its Own Cognitive Operations? (Open Peer Commentary)

Jacques Désautels

Abstract · Full text in PDF (94 kB)

Cognition Made Neat and Tidy (Open Peer Commentary)

Marie Larochelle

Abstract · Full text in PDF (99 kB)

Radical Constructivism Is Neutral (Open Peer Commentary)

Hugh Gash

Abstract · Full text in PDF (93 kB)

When Sharp Distinctions Fail to Be Useful (Open Peer Commentary)

Armin Scholl

Abstract · Full text in PDF (78 kB)

Constructivists Should Drop the Claim of Ethical Responsibility (Open Peer Commentary)

Mathis Danelzik

Abstract · Full text in PDF (75 kB)

Some Questions about Responsibility (Open Peer Commentary)

Jack Lochhead

Abstract · Full text in PDF (75 kB)