[extropy-chat] The political brain

[Keith Henson]

At 11:13 AM 7/13/2006 +0200, you wrote:
>The political brain
>
>http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000CE155-1061-1493-906183414B7F0162
>
>This very good article says that when it comes to politics we tend to
>forget reason and run by emotions: ""Essentially, it appears as if
>partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the
>conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it,
>with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of
>positive ones,"".

This is Drew Westin's work.  You can get the entire preprint paper if you 
want by asking for the password.

>This is probably the reason why transhumanists never seem to come to
>any agreement when political positions are concerned. There must be
>some kind of emotional attachment to political ideas formed early in
>life, that switches reason off when it comes to questioning one's
>worldview.
>
>Or, to say it like our grandfathers (there is nothing new onder the
>sun): you are blind to what you don't want to see, and deaf to what
>you don't want to hear.

The evolutionary psychology question you want to ask is why humans have 
this trait?  My answer is that it is part of the evolved mechanisms leading 
to wars that have been honed since we no longer had predators to keep our 
numbers in check.

Pointer to the article has been posted recently.

Keith Henson