This is part one of a two part post, giving some of the background information needed for the second part of the post.
It's hard to say. The common sense notion is of course that the standard narrative regarding climate change is legitimate. There is substantial credibility to this notion, it has a signal that successfully creates an impression of legitimacy to a substantial extent. However, one thing I've learned in my nearly thirty years of existence on this planet, is that there is such a thing as a false signal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
Because there are both mutual and conflicting interests in most animal signalling systems, a central problem in signalling theory is dishonesty or cheating. For example, if foraging birds are safer when they give a warning call, cheats could give false alarms at random, just in case a predator is nearby. But too much cheating could cause the signalling system to collapse. Every dishonest signal weakens the integrity of the signalling system, and so reduces the fitness of the group.[16][17]
Although this wikipedia article discusses signaling theory outside of the scope of the human species, it most certainly is applicable to the human species as well. In some cases false signaling is obvious, for example things such as hair systems and makeup are false signals of genetic fitness, with the purpose of creating a high quality signal of genetic fitness despite the genetic fitness not existing in the signaler. The purpose of false signals is ultimately to advantage the false signaler at the expense of those who mistakenly identify their signaling as honest. For example, a female may falsely signal high quality skin genetics with the skillful application of makeup, with the ultimate intent of competing with females with the true genetic correlates of high quality skin. This advantages the false signaler as she is able to degrade the value of the honest signal of genetic fitness of her competition, but it is to the detriment of her competition as via a mechanism similar to counterfeiting their honest genetic capital is devalued. It also disadvantages the males who are successfully misled by her false signaling, as they have the genetic capital to attract females with honest genetic correlates of high quality skin, and yet they may end up mating with a genetically inferior female who successfully falsely signals such genetic fitness to them.
More interesting are signals of reality frames dissociated from individual humans (ie: fake news of how the world is, as opposed to fake signals of the genetic fitness an individual has). As with falsely signaling genetic fitness, the ultimate intention of falsely signaling reality frames is to advantage the false signalers at the expense of those who are misled by their false reality frames.
Things are all the more confounded as in addition to false signaling which obfuscates a true threat (such as makeup that obfuscates poor quality skin genetics), there is also false signaling which creates the impression of a threat where none exists. The first form of false signaling is akin to camouflage such as the coat of a polar bear, which falsely signals it is snow so to lull prey into complacency:
The other form of false signaling is akin to a scarecrow, which falsely signals that it is a predator so as to scare away things that may for example eat the vegetables of a farmer.
It is likewise with signaled frames of reality. Some falsely signaled reality frames intend to scare people away from things by creating a false impression of harm:
https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_health4.shtml
The Albert Hofmann collection contains nearly seventy articles on the topic of whether or not LSD-25 causes "chromosome damage". These articles are a good example of the scientific and cultural moral panic that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1967, Science published an article, based on the examination of a single patient, which proposed that LSD caused chromosome breakage.1 As Peter Stafford notes in Psychedelics Encyclopedia, "By evening, the charge that LSD could break chromosomes was in all the nation's media."
Between 1967 and 1972, article after article was published, in respected peer-reviewed journals, describing the link between LSD and chromosomal damage, both in vitro and in users and their offspring. As these reports accumulated, popular media amplified the scare, leading to sensational articles decrying the mutations that would be unleashed on future generations.
"New research finds [LSD] is causing genetic damage that poses a threat of havoc now and appalling abnormalities for generations yet unborn."2
Yet, by the mid-1970s, the tide had turned and the scientific literature generally supported the revised opinion that LSD does not cause chromosomal breakage or birth defects.
How was it possible for this issue to progress as far as it did? In an atmosphere friendly to reports of negative consequences of LSD use, a litany of elementary scientific and research errors were ignored by the journals that published the findings. It wasn't until enough research could be conducted to counteract the initial momentum that saner opinions, and better science, prevailed.
In the collection is a copy of one of the key articles that helped end the hysteria that was taking place in peer reviewed journals and the media. The authors conclude that:
"From our own work and from a review of the literature, we believe that pure LSD ingested in moderate doses does not damage chromosomes in vivo, does not cause detectable genetic damage, and is not a teratogen or a carcinogen in man. Within these bounds, therefore, we suggest that, other than during pregnancy, there is no present contraindication to the continued controlled experimental use of pure LSD."3
The progression of this issue and its related articles is a perfect example of how dozens of journal references supporting one position may still be wrong. In many cases, only time and the evolution of knowledge can sort it out.
It would be interesting to read a retrospective on this part of psychedelic research history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminergic_neurotoxicity_of_MDMA
"Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA[nb 1] ("ecstasy")",[1] was a paper by Dr. George Ricaurte which was published in the leading journal Science, and later retracted. The reason was that instead of using MDMA, methamphetamine had been used in the test.[2]
...
Another remarkable aspect of this episode is the public endorsement of the study, at the time of its publication, by Alan Leshner, chief executive of the AAAS and former director of NIDA. It isn't clear why an officer of the AAAS should be involved at all in publicly promoting a particular result published in its journal, least of all one whose outcome was questioned at the outset by several experts. The AAAS issued the retraction late in the afternoon on Friday 5 September, resulting in low-key media coverage, which contrasts sharply with the hype surrounding the initial paper.
...
In an interview in The Scientist[13] British scientists Colin Blakemore and Leslie Iversen described how they expressed concerns about the article with editors at Science. "It's an outrageous scandal," Iversen told The Scientist. "It's another example of a certain breed of scientist who appear to do research on illegal drugs mainly to show what the governments want them to show. They extract large amounts of grant money from the government to do this sort of biased work."
Upon results of the review, Research Triangle Institute asserted it was impossible the vials had been mislabeled as all other vials in suspect lots were properly labeled by labeling machines and it was not possible some vials had been mislabeled while others had not as the machines use printed rolls of labels. Many have asserted Ricaurte switched the labels in order to insure the continuation of funding and his results were fraudulent rather than mistaken. NIDA and AAAS are also suspected of aiding in the fraud.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_babies
Prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), theorized in the 1970s, occurs when a pregnant woman uses cocaine and thereby exposes her fetus to the drug. "Crack baby" was a term coined to describe children who were exposed to crack (freebase cocaine in smokable form) as fetuses; the concept of the crack baby emerged in the US during the 1980s and 1990s in the midst of a crack epidemic.[1] Other terms are "cocaine baby" and "crack kid". Early studies reported that people who had been exposed to crack in utero would be severely emotionally, mentally, and physically disabled; this belief became common in the scientific and lay communities.[1] Fears were widespread that a generation of crack babies were going to put severe strain on society and social services as they grew up. Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones that PCE has severe disabling consequences; these earlier studies had been methodologically flawed (e.g. with small sample sizes and confounding factors). Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the early studies were vastly overstated and that most people who were exposed to cocaine in utero do not have disabilities.[1]
However, other false reality frames try to create a false impression of a lack of harm:
Typically there are at least two separate camps disseminating frames of reality which they assert to be actual reality.
One of the camps primarily honestly signals, whereas the other camp primarily falsely signals. However, as if things were not already complicated enough, it is often the case that both camps falsely signal to some extent. One example of this involves the anti vaccination movement. This comic strip accurately characterizes the anti vaccination movement, as far as my ability to authenticate the signaling goes (though of course you must trust that I am honestly signaling this information to you!):
However, it must be noted that vaccines are actually not entirely risk free. Around one in a million individuals have what are essentially very rare allergic reactions to vaccines, which can be life threatening even. However, in my research regarding vaccines, on occasion I saw medical professionals scoffing at the notion that vaccines can cause death. Now, in the competition between the anti vaccination movement and the mainstream medical establishment, the mainstream medical establishment is by my assessment of the signaling the honest signaler. However, some of their signaling is less than 100% technically accurate, in isolated incidences that are primarily intended for a lay audience, with the goal of soothing fears that have needlessly been provoked by the anti vaccination movement. However, someone who saw such signaling and believed it would have nevertheless been falsely signaled to, as vaccines can very rarely cause death via severe allergic reactions. Acetaminophen (paracetamol) can very rarely cause death via severe allergic reaction as well though! And the benefits of vaccination clearly outweigh the risks posed by it.
In the context of human false reality signaling, I've noted at least four pertinent areas of academic inquiry. Primarily, I study the signaling of false reality frames that are as the scarecrow is, creating a false impression of a threat where there is none. I believe this sort of false reality frame is more powerful against the general population, and that this was evolutionarily selected for in the following manner:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/02/word-of-the-day-hyperactive-agency-detection/
February 12 is Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin. In honor of Darwin’s 203rd birthday, let’s look into a term that’s related to both evolution and religion.
Imagine an early hominid in the grasslands of Africa. He hears a rustling in the bushes—is that a cheetah or just the wind? Should he run away or ignore it?
There are two kinds of errors. Suppose our friend thinks it’s a cheetah and runs away … but he’s wrong. This is a false positive. He’s crying wolf. There can be a cost to this—our timid hominid might have been frightened away from a water hole.
But consider the other error. The hominid might think it’s the wind in the tall grass … but he’s wrong. This is a false negative. The cost is obvious—he likely becomes a predator’s lunch.
Given the disproportionate consequences for guessing wrongly, natural selection seems to have selected for caution. As a result, early man may have developed a “hyperactive agency detection device”—an overactive tendency to see agency (that is, intelligence) in nature, even where there is none. The HADD may also be where we detect patterns in things—superstition, concluding that odd events are more than coincidence, or even conspiracy theories.
If this gave early man the ideas of spirits of the dead and gods, this may help explain where early religion came from.
One area related to false signals of harm is called 'Moral Panic Theory' in sociology:
https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/11128.ch01.pdf
Panic
A Guide to the Uses of Fear
[W]e are only episodic conductors of meaning, essentially. We
form a mass, living most of the time in a state of panic or
haphazardly, above and beyond any meaning.
“Moral panic” can be defined broadly as any mass movement that emerges in response to a false, exaggerated, or ill- defined moral threat to society and proposes to address this threat through punitive mea-sures: tougher enforcement, “zero tolerance,” new laws, communal vigi-lance, violent purges.1 Witch hunts are classic examples of moral panics in small, tribal, or agrarian communities. McCarthyism is the obvious example of a moral panic fueled by the mass media and tethered to re-pressive governance.2
Moral panic involves false reality frames, including though not necessarily limited to in this manner:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201507/moral-panic-who-benefits-public-fear
Moreover, there are two important news media practices that contribute to moral panic. These are known as framing and priming. Framing refers to the way an issue is presented to the public or angle it is given by the news media. Framing involves calling attention to certain aspects of an issue while ignoring or obscuring other elements. In other words, framing gives meaning to an issue.
Dr. Gaye Tuchman proposed that the news media rely on “news frames” to determine what events to cover and how to cover them (2). Just as the photographer’s choice of lens affects a photograph, the journalist’s choice of news frame affects a story. Tuchman theorized that journalists select news frames for a story based in part on routine procedures and the organizational constraints of their particular medium.
In addition, the choice of frame is influenced by prior news frames, the power and authority of news sources, history and even ideology. Thus, news frames are contested or negotiated phenomena rather than being based solely on objective events. Most importantly, an audience will react very differently to an issue or story depending on how it is framed by the news media.
In contrast, priming is a psychological process whereby the news media emphasis on a particular issue not only increases the salience of the issue on the public agenda, but also activates previously acquired information about that issue in people’s memories. The priming mechanism explains how the news frame used in a particular story can trigger an individual’s pre-existing attitudes, beliefs and prejudices regarding that issue.
An example of priming would be the triggering of varied individual responses such as outrage or pity to the framing of Dr. Conrad Murray—Michael Jackson’s accused killer and personal physician—during his 2011 manslaughter trial. Given the news media’s prior framing of the legendary Michael Jackson as an eccentric and troubled genius, people naturally had different reactions to the framing of Dr. Murray due to their own individual interpretations of the image of Jackson.
An example of this in relation to teenage sexuality:
https://books.google.ch/books?id=Yq...u4GABQ#v=onepage&q=teenage sex regret&f=false
The official view is that teens have sex only for bad reasons: because of enticing
media images, peer pressure, hormones, limited brains, and other misguided compulsions.
In such a climate, researchers who find teens expressing positive attitudes about
sex and their sexual experiences often feel compelled to slant their results in a
negative manner--and if they do not, media reports will.
For example, Web MD reported a University of California study of 619 teens, 275
of whom had intercourse or oral sex during their ninth or tenth grade years, under
the headline, "Teen sex may take emotional toll. Girls especially vulnerable to
negative emotional aftereffects." Web MD's headline and article were not fair
characterizations of the 18-month study published in the February 2007 pediatrics.
In fact, the study found teens aged 15 and 16 were quite positive about their sexual
experiences. Directly contradicting those who claim teen sex inexorably leads to
regret, depression, and even suicide, only 2 percent (among teens who had both oral
sex and intercourse) to 4 percent (for those who had only oral sex) said their
experiences had been entirely negative. In contrast, an astounding 61 percent (oral
sex), 86 percent (intercourse), and 96 percent (both) said at least one aspect of
the sex had been positive. Even though researchers gave teens only half as many
positive as negative options to choose from, 8 to 20 times more felt their experience
had been entirely positive. Most reported both positive experiences (led by pleasure,
feeling good about oneself, and making one's relationship better) and negative ones
(led by much lower levels of feeling used, feeling bad about oneself, and feeling
regret).
Web MD's headline, then, should have been "Teenagers generally report positive
experiences from sex." That most sexually active teens could think of at least
one negative consequence, as defined by the researchers, not only failed to negate
their generally positive reactions, it indicated a healthy ability to recognize the
complexity of sexual experience. What sexually active adult has not experienced some
bad results (remember the famous "Hite Report" of yore?)?
Another area is called 'Social Mania', though these may not always involve false signals in the form of a scarecrow (though they commonly do), and can also involve false signals in a form I actually haven't mentioned yet, in which there is a reality frame to be extremely ecstatic about despite it not being real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mania
Social manias are mass movements which periodically sweep through societies. They are characterized by an outpouring of enthusiasm, mass involvement and millenarian goals. Social manias are contagious social epidemics, and as such they should be differentiated from mania in individuals.
Social manias come in different sizes and strengths. Some social manias fail to 'catch fire', while others persist for hundreds of years (although sometimes in severely attenuated form). Common to all is a vision of salvation, a new way of life, which if realized would radically change everyday life, ushering in a new world of freedom and justice.
A form of false signaling in which something truly harmful is signaled as nonexistent is essentially denialism. By my assessment of the evidence, I believe that those who signal that the holocaust did not happen are sending false signals that camouflage the true existence of the holocaust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II.[1] Holocaust deniers claim: that Nazi Germany's Final Solution was aimed only at deporting Jews from the Reich but that it did not include the extermination of Jews; that Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers to mass murder Jews; or that the actual number of Jews killed was significantly lower than the historically accepted figure of 5 to 6 million, typically around a tenth of that figure.[2][3][4]
Another area is called 'Mass Hysteria' and is also studied in sociology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria
In sociology and psychology, mass hysteria (also known as collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior) is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear (memory acknowledgement).[1][2]
Some have called the anti vaccination movement a mass hysteria, though I believe they are a non-criminological moral panic:
http://www.skepticalob.com/2016/09/are-anti-vaccine-parents-in-the-grip-of-mass-hysteria.html
Are anti-vaccine parents in the grip of mass hysteria?
Welcome to Salem road sign illustration, with distressed foreboding background
Vaccination is one the greatest public health advances of all time.
It has saved, and continues to save, literally millions of lives each year, yet many well meaning parents have become convinced that vaccines are harmful and there is no amount of scientific evidence that can convince them otherwise.
Here is some more information on the anti vaccination movement:
http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/37/1/69.short
The last dozen years have seen a massive transnational mobilization of the legal, political, and research communities in response to the worrisome hypothesis that vaccines could have a link to childhood autism and other developmental conditions. Vaccine critics, some already organized and some composed of newly galvanized parents, developed an alternate world of internally legitimating studies, blogs, conferences, publications, and spokespeople to affirm a connection.
As I have noted above, there is indeed a complex community of researchers, journals, and articles to point to, facts to recite, conferences to attend, and professional groups to connect with that supply a great deal of internal legitimacy
Note how they have constructed an alternate reality which has no true correlation to the state of actual existence. This is akin to makeup that has no true correlate to the genetics for high quality skin, or a wig that has no true correlate to the genetics for MPB resistance. However, rather than being camouflage as these false genetic quality signals are, they are more akin to the scarecrow, which likewise creates a frame of reality with no true correlate to the state of actual existence.
Note how those who believe in the false reality frames are resistant to the scientific evidence that demonstrates the lack of correlation the frames have to the state of actual reality. Their brains are actually undergoing neural patterns reminiscent of anosognosic schizophrenia when they are exposed to evidence contrary to the false reality frames they incorrectly believe to be correlated to the state of actual reality.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589
Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence
...
Challenges to political beliefs produced increased activity in the default mode network—a set of interconnected structures associated with self-representation and disengagement from the external world.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ous-people-emotional-not-think-logically.html
Religious people 'cling to certain beliefs' even when they contradict evidence because they are overly emotional and irrational, study claims
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/
Anosognosia in Schizophrenia: Hidden in Plain Sight
...
“I don’t need medicine—there is nothing wrong with me. I just came here for a check-up.”
This involves the deactivation of evolutionarily modern cognition's neural substrate concomitant the activation of the anti-correlated ancestral cognition's neural substrate:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805169/
Finally, we have demonstrated that attention to engaging social stimuli not only activates the DMN but also deactivates the TPN. In a subsequent study[30] it was shown that this pattern of DMN activation and TPN deactivation was present for humanizing depictions of individuals, whereas dehumanizing depictions, which are associated with decreased moral concern, either involved decreased activity in the DMN or increased activity in the TPN. Taken together, these findings suggest that we are neurologically constrained from simultaneously exercising moral concern and analytic thinking.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323151838.htm
"These findings," Friedman continued, "are consistent with the philosophical view, espoused by (Immanuel) Kant, according to which there are two distinct types of truth: empirical and moral."
As you can see the activation of the DMN results in access to what they are improperly calling the moral truth, whereas activation of the TPN results in access to the empirical scientific truth. What they are calling the moral truth is more appropriately termed the cultural truth, they are conflating cultural truths with moral truths most inappropriately:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23256249.2013.812821?scroll=top&needAccess=true&
This article discusses the rationale of Nazi ethics and the moral conditioning of Nazi perpetrators aimed at developing a kind of “ethnic conscience” which restricted moral obligations to members of their own race community. It reconstructs how the universal ethics of humanism got turned upside down and replaced with the particularistic selective racial ethics and the pragmatics of eugenics and racial exterminatory politics. Traditional values regarding human life, based on the idea of its unconditional worth, were replaced by the distinction between life worthy of being promoted and life unworthy of being lived. It shows how ordinary Germans became willing executioners of criminal and immoral deeds. Neither did they act without any moral orientation nor in the awareness that what they were doing was morally reprehensible. As perpetrators with a clear conscience they were convinced that the humiliation, persecution, deportation and, finally, killing of the Jews was the right thing to do.
They call the cultural truth the moral truth because:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development#Conventional
Conventional
The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. To reason in a conventional way is to judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.[7][8][9]
An example of the activation of the DMN resulting in different reasoning than the activation of the TPN:
https://philiaresearch.wordpress.co...ownplay-their-attraction-to-adolescent-girls/
A new study of Bulgarian men has replicated a previous 2013 experiment on British men. In both studies, the same photographs of adolescent girls (Tanner stages 3-4) were shown to one group of men labelled as age 14-15, and a different set of men labelled as age 16-17. Subjects reported more sexual attraction when the photographs were labelled as 16-17. The researchers conclude:
[T]he consistent finding that the same photographs of younger females, but with different age labels, were assigned significantly different levels of attractiveness suggests that cognitive factors beyond biologically driven sexual attraction were involved in making these ratings. In all the three samples, apparently younger girls were rated as less attractive than older girls despite being the same photographs. We hypothesize that this difference reflects some self-censoring mechanism involved in making such judgments. This may involve a form of comparison between participants’ own sexual attraction to the individual girl and the likely social norms surrounding this judgment.
This finding has now been replicated across four samples, including one that is yet to be reported.
Another example involves the ability of adherents to one religious faith to recognize the absurdity in the scripture of other faiths:
http://www.mrm.org/coriantumr-and-shiz
Can a decapitated body lift itself up and gasp for breath? The Book of Mormon seems to say so. The story is found in the Book of Ether and recounts a sword fight between a Jaredite king named Coriantumr (Ether 12:1) and Shiz, the brother of Lib (Ether 14:17).
As the story goes, Lib was killed in a battle with Coriantumr’s army. As a result, Shiz followed Coriantumr in vengeful pursuit, burning cities and killing women and children along the way. Finally the two armies met near the seashore and gave battle for three days. After the third battle, Shiz wounded Coriantumr with “many deep wounds,” and he had to be “carried away as though he were dead.”
After recovering from his wounds, Coriantumr began to feel bad over the fact that “there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.” He attempted to make peace with Shiz, but Shiz agreed only if he would be allowed to kill Coriantumr with his own sword. Well, this only infuriated Coriantumr’s people, and so the fighting started all over again.
Eventually the armies meet. For several days men, women, and children fight relentlessly until only Coriantumr and Shiz remain. Ether 15:29 states that in the course of the battle, “Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood.” Taking advantage of the situation, Coriantumr took his sword and “smote off the head of Shiz.” But that isn’t the end. Verse 31 reports that “after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.” The question is, how can a man without a head raise himself and also struggle for breath?
While failing to identify equally unlikely elements in their own religious scriptures:
https://www.thoughtco.com/jonah-and-the-whale-700202
Jonah was in the giant fish three days. God commanded the whale, and it vomited the reluctant prophet onto dry land. This time Jonah obeyed God. He walked through Nineveh proclaiming that in forty days the city would be destroyed. Surprisingly, the Ninevites believed Jonah's message and repented, wearing sackcloth and covering themselves in ashes.
The reason for this is that the Task Positive Network is capable of rational, analytical thought:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/154f/9a7fb5f1ee00c34f2d918db9825ca5b09f17.pdf
System 1 has been variously characterized as 'intuitive', 'emotion-driven' and 'experiential'; whereas System 2 has been characterized as, 'controlled', 'rule-based', 'rational' and 'analytic'. We know of two lines of work which link cognitive neuroscience to this classical form of dual process theory:one which looks at logical reasoning (Goel and Dolan, 2003), the other moral judgments (Greene et al., 2004). Both identify areas in the DMN and TPN associated with System 1 and System 2 reasoning respectively. Hence, the link between dual-process theories of cognition and the DMN vs.TPN dichotomy appears worthy of further investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory
System 2 in humans
System 2 is evolutionarily recent and specific to humans. It is also known as the explicit system, the rule-based system, the rational system,[12] or the analytic system.[16] It performs the more slow and sequential thinking. It is domain-general, performed in the central working memory system. Because of this, it has a limited capacity and is slower than System 1 which correlates it with general intelligence. It is known as the rational system because it reasons according to logical standards.[16] Some overall properties associated with System 2 are that it is rule-based, analytic, controlled, demanding of cognitive capacity, and slow.[12]
Engaging culturally pertinent stimuli cause the deactivation of the task positive network in the neurotypical population:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149989
Engaging social stimuli are associated with activation of the DMN and deactivation of the TPN, whereas analytic problems are associated with activation of the TPN and deactivation of the DMN.
Leaving them with neural activity reminiscent of anosognosic schizophrenia:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/
The DMN is involved with processes of self-reflection, social cognition, and mind-wandering. Hyperconnectivity has been noted in the DMN of individuals at high risk for developing schizophrenia.
Whitfield-Gabrieli et al39 studied patients with schizophrenia; young, at-risk, first-degree relatives; and unaffected controls using fMRI during alternating conditions of wakeful rest and a focused working memory task. While the unaffected controls showed predictable deactivation of DMN during active task, the patients and relatives showed diminished deactivation, as well as greater activity in right DLPFC. This finding has essentially been replicated twice by two other research groups.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/
The results showed a correlation between insight as measured by the BCIS self-reflectiveness index and lower gray matter volume in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). The VLPFC is involved in working memory and decision making. The findings suggest that a reduced VLPFC volume corresponds with a diminished capacity to entertain alternative explanations about one’s misperceptions leading to impairment in awareness of illness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter...s#Ventrolateral_prefrontal_cortex_.28vlPFC.29
The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) is a subdivision of the prefrontal cortex. Its involvement in modulating existing behavior and emotional output given contextual demands has been studied extensively using cognitive reappraisal studies and emotion-attention tasks. Cognitive reappraisal studies indicate the vlFPC’s role in reinterpreting stimuli, and reducing or augmenting responses. Studies using emotion-attention tasks demonstrate the vlFPC’s function in ignoring emotional distractions while the brain is engaged in performing other tasks.[6]
Essentially, the false reality frames are deactivating their evolutionarily modern cognition's neural substrate and leaving them conceptually isolated in a dream like fantasy world:
https://www.researchgate.net/public...rrelates_of_Insight_in_Dreaming_and_Psychosis
To summarize, the empirical findings reviewed here constitute
neurobiological evidence of the theoretical idea that dreaming
indeed might serve as a model of psychosis: cortical, in particular
prefrontal, medial parietal and inferior temporal regions that are
linked to insight problems in psychosis show striking overlap with
brain regions in which activation increases during dreaming are
associated with the gain of insight into the current state of mind
(see Fig. 3). From a network point of view, schizophrenia patients
show disconnectivity within the frontoparietal network and
stronger connectivity within the default mode network
[79,80], with the exception of default mode network regions implicated in
self-referential processing, within which patients with poor insight
show decreased connectivity [56].
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00107530.2013.10746548
activity in the DMN is strongly associated with mental imagery that is not directly tied to current perception (“stimulus-independent thought”), which is also a central feature of dreams.
They are essentially socially convergently psychotic anosognosic schizophrenics, who are conceptually isolated in the make believe fantasy world of the false reality frames that deactivate their evolutionarily recent cognition's neural substrate and induce them into such a dreamlike state:
http://www.faceofmalawi.com/2017/07/religious-people-have-mental-illness-neuroscientist-warns/
The self-described atheist, who is also a neuroendocrinologist, argues that religion is comparable to a shared schizophrenia.
https://philarchive.org/archive/VANRCA-8
In this paper, I examine the relationship between social cognition and religious cognition. Many
cognitive theories of religion claim that these two forms are somehow related, but the details are
usually left unexplored and insights from theories of social cognition are not taken on board.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...see-purpose-behind-the-events-in-their-lives/
Some experts theorize that certain schizophrenia symptoms (for instance, paranoia) arise in part from a hyperactive sense of social reasoning. “I’d guess that they’d give lots of teleological answers; more than neurotypical people, and certainly far more than people with Asperger’s,” Heywood says.
Now in some cases outbreaks of socially convergently psychotic anosognosic schizophrenia are trivial to identify:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/health/gang-stalking-targeted-individuals.html
A growing tribe of troubled minds
Mental health professionals say the narrative has taken hold among a group of people experiencing psychotic symptoms that have troubled the human mind since time immemorial. Except now victims are connecting on the internet, organizing and defying medical explanations for what’s happening to them.
The community, conservatively estimated to exceed 10,000 members, has proliferated since 9/11, cradled by the internet and fed by genuine concerns over government surveillance. A large number appear to have delusional disorder or schizophrenia, psychiatrists say.
Yet, the phenomenon remains virtually unresearched.
For the few specialists who have looked closely, these individuals represent an alarming development in the history of mental illness: thousands of sick people, banded together and demanding recognition on the basis of shared paranoias.
They raise money, hold awareness campaigns, host international conferences and fight for their causes in courts and legislatures
Perhaps their biggest victory came last year, when believers in Richmond, Calif., persuaded the City Council to pass a resolution banning space-based weapons that they believe could be used for mind control. A similar lobbying effort is underway in Tucson.
This is especially true when they have traditional schizophrenia that is more general rather than socioculturally triggered by select stimuli with otherwise ability to activate the task positive network. It is also particularly true when their outbreaks are largely contained, such as this example involving on the order of 10,000 or so individuals. As the outbreaks increase in size and in general maintenance of cognitive faculties other than when triggered by select false reality frames:
https://www.theverge.com/science/2017/7/13/15964628/france-vaccination-skeptic-law-vaccine-mandate
But some experts question whether a vaccination mandate will sway public opinion in France, where distrust in vaccines has risen alarmingly in recent years. In a survey published last year, 41 percent of respondents in France disagreed with the statement that vaccines are safe — the highest rate of distrust among the 67 countries that were surveyed, and more than three times higher than the global average.
https://impact.vice.com/en_us/artic...-the-anti-vaxxer-movement-with-actual-science
"It feels like we're back in the '40s when vaccines were widely contested," Professor François Chast -- a leading pro-vaccine activist and head of the Hotel-Dieu clinic in Paris - told VICE Impact. "How did we get here? The idea that all information is equal."
It can become harder to tell what is actual reality from what is what I have termed pseudoreality. I have seen and indeed there still exist to this very day numerous falsely signaled realities that enormous swathes of the population false believe are actual reality, against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The false realities typically develop essentially lives of their own, including immune system constructs such as heresy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs. A heretic is a proponent of such claims or beliefs.[1] Heresy is distinct from both apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles or cause,[2] and blasphemy, which is an impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.[3]
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
Heresy
This won't get us all the answers, though. What if no one happens to have gotten in trouble for a particular idea yet? What if some idea would be so radioactively controversial that no one would dare express it in public? How can we find these too?
Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that.
We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.
So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true?
So in this environment of false reality frames and so forth, as previously described, it can be quite challenging to determine what is actual reality from what is a frame of a false reality.
